


Somnium

by afterandalasia



Category: Aladdin (1992), Enchanted (2007), Mulan (1998), Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: disney_kink, Crossover Pairings, Dark, F/F, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Female Friendship, Giselle has Powers, Loyalty, Magic, Prophetic Visions, Seer Aurora, Sultana Jasmine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:58:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aurora awoke to a different sort of nightmare. Giselle fell a long way through that magical portal. And Mulan is believed dead or a traitor by the Kingdom that she saved. In each other they have found a sanctuary, and a shared purpose. When news comes of trouble brewing in the land of Agrabah far to the south, they respond as can only seem just, but the darkness runs deeper than it may seem and the danger greater than they could have anticipated.</p><p>Fusion of Disney canons with Jim C. Hines's Princess Series.</p><p>For full warnings, please see Notes (at end)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ari_griffin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ari_griffin).



**Prologue**  
  
"I dreamt of fire again last night," Aurora said.  
  
She was still pale, a little gaunt, deep shadows beneath her eyes. Her companions looked round to her uncertainly, one still proffering a bowl of porridge. She took it, cradling the warmth like all of hers had been stolen away, and bowed her head slightly to inhale the scent of honey.  
  
"How widespread?" one of them finally asked.  
  
"Like the whole world was burning," she replied, voice growing hoarse for a moment. Her hand trembled as she raised the spoon to her lips, almost gulping at the hot food. "We need to return to the towns. Shang will be waiting for us."  
  
The others waited to see if there was anything more to come. Aurora did not look up, her eyes fixed on her food, and she seemed to eat as quickly as she could bear. Finally, though, she paused, spoon almost touching her lips, and said in a voice that was almost a whimper:  
  
“I felt the fire myself. Like it was me ablaze.”  
  
  
  
  
  
   
 **Chapter One**  
  
They rode into the town without ceremony, as was their wont. After weeks in the deep woods they looked much as any other travellers, especially with their hoods drawn low over their faces and their shoulders bowed in tiredness. It had begun to rain, a seeping drizzle that chilled to the bone and sent homeowners scurrying for the shelter of their houses. Aurora led the way, her fingers twined in Samson’s mane rather than needing to touch his reins, with the other two following behind and to either side of her on the gloomy streets. Finally she stopped, abruptly, outside a dingy inn, and when she glanced up the rain fell against her face for a moment before she nodded.  
  
“He is here,” she said simply.  
  
There was a groom at the rear of the inn, but he was hiding beneath the stables, and looked utterly disinterested until Aurora threw back her hood and let the long blonde curls of her hair fall freely. Then he started to attention and rushed out into the rain, helping her alight at the mounting block and not commenting on her bare, mud-caked feet. Samson snorted and shuffled away slightly as the second figure drew up alongside the block, dismounting nimbly and handing the reins to the groom as well. He looked surprised at the feminine hand, more so at the feminine features which he glimpsed beneath her hood.  
  
Before he could begin to speak, the third figure had dismounted in the middle of the yard, keeping a tight hand on their horse’s reins.  
  
“I will stable Khan myself,” they said. “Tell Shang that I am here.”  
  
“We will,” said the second figure, taking Aurora’s arm and steering her back towards the inn. The rain became heavier, rattling down on the streets and rooftops, muting the rest of the world beneath its hold. They stepped inside, shrugging water off their shoulders, and finally the second figure threw back her hood to reveal red curls of hair, green-blue eyes, and a silver scar that cut across her right cheek. They glanced around the smoky interior of the inn, then with a sigh of relief from Aurora wove between the tables to a quieter corner, almost hidden behind the fireplace, where the man sitting alone kept his threatening air.  
  
He looked up as they approached; his features were foreign to this land, high cheekbones and golden-tan skin, but the broad set of his shoulders and the sword at his side could speak in any language.  
  
“Hǎojǐu bújiàn1, ” he said as they approached, a touch of humour in his voice though his eyes were still dark. He nodded to Aurora, then embraced her companion warmly. “Where is Ping?”  
  
“He is just with the horses. I fear he does not trust the groom.”  
  
Shang chuckled. “Sometimes I fear that he trusts no-one. Come, sit down. You look cold. The stew here is not good, but it is better than nothing.”  
  
“I will order,” said the red-haired woman, gently guiding Aurora into a seat before turning and flitting off to get the bartender’s attention. Shang watched her go with a faint smile, then turned back to Aurora once again.  
  
“You always know where I will be,” he said softly. “And when. I... must thank you, for helping Mulan.”  
  
“The others help me greatly,” Aurora replied, her eyes still fixed upon the table. She had grown pale, Shang noticed, even more so than when he had last seen her; there was a translucency about her now. “I would not be able to be without them.”  
  
Shang nodded. “Even so. I know how much you mean to them both.”  
  
She did not reply, and he lapsed back into silence. Barely a moment passed before the door opened again and the third member of their party walked in, a young man with the same cast to his features as Shang, hair pulled up into a bun at the back of his head and a sword at his side to match the green breastplate that he wore. He crossed to the table and nodded smartly. “Captain Li.”  
  
“Li Ping,” replied Shang with a nod, but his eyes were warm and relieved.  
  
The young soldier sat down beside Shang, face still calm, but beneath the table his hand came to rest on the Captain’s thigh.  
  
“Duō xiǎng nǐ yā,2” he said, very softly, and for a moment his expression softened. Then he laid both hands on the table again, and turned to Aurora. “Where is Giselle?”  
  
“She is getting food for you,” Shang replied. Aurora remained still, hands in her lap, the back of the chair that she was seated in seeming to enfold her. “How has time been?”  
  
Ping shrugged. “Cold. Wet. It seems that this land never can manage good weather. But at least it is now safer with Prince Ferdinand and Eirlys’s Kingdoms joined together.”  
  
Shang nodded. He knew that the battle haunted them still, the poison that had twisted the trees of the land against them still coming to them in their dreams. He had been there when they had smashed into the crystal coffin that Queen Grimhilde had laid Snow White into, when they had drawn her out as cold as death and with her fingernails worn down to blood, and when they had pressed her into the crying Ferdinand’s arms for him to awaken her with his kiss. Snow White knew nothing of ruling, but Ferdinand would unite both Kingdoms in peace now, they were quite sure.  
  
“How are your scars?” Ping asked, this time with a touch of tenderness.  
  
Without thinking, Shang raised one hand to the scars that raked across his chest, the dragon’s mark that he would bear until the end of his days. “They are healed now,” he lied, thinking of the times that they had awoken him in the night with burning pain.  
  
“Good,” said Ping softly.  
  
They were interrupted by Giselle’s return, with a tray covered in hot soup, thick bread and chunks of cheese, as well as flagons of ale. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, perhaps with the heat of the inn, as she pushed the tray into the centre of the table and then sat down next to Aurora, brushing the younger girl’s arm softly to get her attention before handing her a bowl.  
  
“There are rooms free as well,” she said, looking up. “I booked one for myself and Aurora, I thought...”  
  
“Thank you,” said Ping abruptly, the slightest of blushes on his cheeks.  
  
Giselle smiled and nodded. “Well, yes. Shang,” she said, turning to address him directly, and he was caught off guard by it for a moment. She had changed since they had last talked, that much was immediately clear. “Aurora said that you would have news for us. From the south?”  
  
He hesitated for a moment, confusion crossing his handsome features. “I have heard rumours, nothing more. And none dangerous. Things are strangely quiet in Agrabah, that is all.”  
  
“Agrabah,” said Ping softly. “I have heard of it.”  
  
“Another of the city-states,” Shang replied with a wave of his hand. “They produce cloth, some spices. Their army is small, so far as I know; they do not make war, and are not rich enough to be attacked. None would have noticed their silence were it not for the fact that it came right at the time that the Princess was supposed to be wed. There was not half the ceremony that would have been expected. Are you certain that there is to be trouble there?”  
  
The others looked to Aurora, who nodded. “A land of gold and silk. I have dreamt of such a place.” Shang looked unconvinced, but the others had trusted Aurora on many an occasion and he knew that she had never failed them.  
  
“There has been silence for almost three years now,” Shang said. “People are just beginning to take notice.”  
  
“Then it is time for us to take notice also,” declared Ping. “We should start riding out tomorrow.”  
  
“The General does not know that I am here,” Shang admitted. A look of pain flickered across Ping’s face, and unconsciously he moved his hand to curve around Shang’s. “I will not be sought out for another two days, I hope, but I will not be able to go with you. I am sorry.”  
  
A momentary pause, and then Ping nodded, the movement strained. “Very well. Then we will wait here as long as you are able, then ride out. I do not want to waste this time.”   
  
  
  
  
  
1 \- "Long time, no see."  
2 \- "I've missed you so much."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**  
  
Aurora did not sleep well that night. She rarely did, Giselle knew, but this night was worse than many and she tossed and turned, murmuring in her sleep. Some semblance of peace came only when Giselle sat up, drew the younger woman onto her lap, and stroked her hair over and over. By the time that the sun started to rise, faint and strained through white clouds, Giselle had also fallen asleep again, seated and leaning against the wall.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Aurora whispered as she awoke. Giselle hushed her.  
  
“No, Rose, no. It’s nothing. Come on. What did you dream?”  
  
“I ... cannot remember clearly.” She shook her head, curls tousling around her face. “It was all fire and violence again.”  
  
As always, Giselle thought, but did not say anything. They dressed and breakfasted, knowing better than to disturb Shang and Ping, and made their way out into the quiet streets of town. The rain had stilled by now, though not for long, still dripping from gutters and forming shallow puddles in any hollow on the street. The town seemed cleaner than many in which they had been, but more withdrawn, the shutters of windows drawn tightly closed and no people on the streets. Much of the thatching on the roofs was still a dark brown-grey, not yet greening or blackening with age, but there was a shadowed time to them.  
  
More than once, Giselle caught sight of someone out of the corner of her eye, but before she could fully turn they would have disappeared from view again. She wondered if they were running. The mill on the edges of the town turned steadily in the wind, and she could see the large buildings of the blacksmith, and yet no people to complete the image. Finally, with a shake of her head, she suggested that they return to the inn to see to their horses, and Aurora agreed almost naturally.  
  
There was no sign of the groom from the previous day, but the stable looked to have been mucked out and none of the horses but Khan was shifting impatiently. Seeing as that was his usual state, Giselle simply chuckled and withdrew the curry comb from the bag of kit in the stall with Destiny. Aurora produced an apple and a small knife from her pocket and began to cut it into pieces; their usual treat for when they were not riding and there was not much opportunity for the horses to get exercise.  
  
She had been surprised, at least at first, at how many looks Destiny had gained. Apparently white horses were rare in this land, not to mention that her mane had been unusually long at the time. Trimmed, it tangled far less easily, and earnt fewer strange looks. Destiny gently headbutted Giselle’s side, which earnt a laugh but also a click of the tongue to still her before starting to make smooth circular motions with the comb.  
  
“Good morning, Samson,” Aurora murmured, taking a second comb from the bag and following Giselle’s lead. Giselle looked up and smiled faintly, but did not say anything as Aurora stood where she could look into Samson’s eyes. “How are you doing, hmm? Was that a nice apple?”  
  
She continued the gentle words as she worked, through dandy and body brushes, and soft cloth around the eyes and ears. When both were finished they turned their attention to Khan, knowing that Ping would rather they check him over than a stranger, and though Khan huffed and pawed the ground a bit he calmed when Aurora began to hum a distant tune.  
  
“Check the hooves?” Giselle suggested.  
  
“I think so.”  
  
There were no problems with any of the horses’ hooves, and the women talked sweetly to all three of them for being so good. Ping usually laughed when they did so, but then was just as sweet with Khan anyway that he could hardly talk. Checking the hay, they declared it acceptable and, with just a pause for Aurora to kiss Samson’s nose and earn a flick of the ears in response, they let them be.  
  
As the sun crested in the sky they returned to their room once again, this time with cold meats and some rounds of unleavened bread from the kitchens. Giselle added wood to the embers of the fireplace and coaxed it back to flame, then retrieved from her bag her sewing kit and took to the windowsill to work, whilst the light was good, on a shirt that had been torn some days before. Seated before the fire, Aurora looked through a bundled collection of drawings which she had made before, most in charcoal but a few in ink, more vivid reminders of her dreams than could be held in words. Some of them she crumpled up and gave to the flames; others she lingered on a little longer, and then slipped back into their leather binding.  
  
After a while she took out fresh parchment and thin charcoal sticks, and Giselle could see her posture relaxed as she continued her work. Often Aurora’s attempts to speak of her dreams failed her, but when Mulan had pressed an ink-brush into her hands – perhaps meaning her to write – she had fallen upon drawing with a look of beauteous relief. Giselle’s hands fell still for a moment as, from where she sat, she watched forms grow: a giant mouth that seemed to be made up of the ground itself, fire glowing from the centre of it; a smoky figure coming forth from the spout of a lamp.  
  
It was only moments before Aurora’s hands were marked with dark smudges, on the pads of her fingers and the base of her thumb as she smoothed the charcoal into place. It did not take much longer for her to touch her cheeks or nose without thinking and leave marks there as well, and Giselle smiled at how young they made her look. Calm came over Aurora as she flicked her hair over her shoulder and tilted her head to regard another drawing and, wishing neither to disturb nor intrude, Giselle drew herself back to working on her sewing once again.  
  
The day passed with a dull sense of waiting, until evening when a knock came at the door. Giselle rose to her feet with a look of alarm, drawing a knife from where it had lain in her lap. She crept over to beside the door, raising it, as Aurora slowly backed away.  
  
“It’s me,” came the voice from outside.  
  
With a sigh of relief, Giselle opened the door and Ping stepped through. The shadows beneath his eyes had disappeared, though they were now slightly red. She said nothing, sheathing the knife again, and Ping slowly closed the door behind him, letting the latch fall into place.  
  
“A messenger came today,” he said, “earlier than expected. Shang had to go back.”  
  
“We can leave tomorrow morning,” said Giselle. “I’ll get some supplies tonight.”  
  
Ping nodded, reaching up to let his hair loose. It fell almost to his shoulders, thick and black, and then after a moment with a sigh Mulan came back to them. “I wish I could spend more time with him. These days...”  
  
All the words that Giselle could have thought of had been said before, and she patted Mulan’s arm instead. Mulan gave a wan smile, then shook her head as if recalling something. “I have left my things in Shang’s room. I should get those back. Will you be all right for a moment, Aurora?”  
  
“Of course,” Aurora replied softly.  
  
Mulan nodded, and patted Giselle’s hand absentmindedly. “Very well. I will see you later this evening, then. Take care.”  
  
“I always do.”  
  
~  
  
In the end, they left before dawn. Mulan had slept deeply, on the floor, a frown on her face even in sleep; Aurora had twitched and cried in her sleep, but had seemed to find at least some peace whilst she was in Giselle’s arms. The air seemed to have emptied itself of rain, and the sunrise was clear and pale as they turned their horses south, not needing to speak nowadays to know what was meant with the slightest of hand movements.  
  
They did not need to keep their usual formation, and allowed their horses to find their own pace, stopping for breaks to water them regularly. It was a companionable silence, though Giselle disliked it in comparison to the laughter and talk that they had shared, on rare nights, some time ago now. The leagues blurred beneath their feet, the woodlands that had once been home, at least to Aurora, giving way to more open grasslands.  
  
Here at least, they were less known, and could barter for food in the towns, and trade. Where the villagers would not deal with women, they would send in Ping to barter with them, but often Giselle was better at gaining peoples’ confidence with her bright smiles and occasional gifts of flowers. Though the weather was turning colder in the north, here it remained bright, and as the sun rose higher in the sky day by day it became fiercer also, and Aurora and Giselle were both forced to cover their skin for protection from the sun.  
  
The grasslands became finer and scrubbier, and they took shelter where they could in the hottest part of the day and travelled later into the night. Mulan and Giselle took to keep watching into the night as they moved further still from the lands which they knew, though Aurora was in no fit state to as her sleep became worse and worse with time. More than once she awoke screaming, her eyes open but seeing nothing, and both would come scrambling to her side.  
  
Eventually they reached the edge of the northern lands, the sharp plateau that marked the end of their world. The world fell away sharply beneath them, boundless-seeming sand stretching out beneath them, heat making the horizon shimmer.  
  
“The dead lands,” said Mulan, and then with a shift of her posture and the tilt of her head it was clear that Ping was back. A faint smile crossed his face. “It’s been a long time.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**  
  
It was dangerous, Ping said, to travel outside the trade roads across the desert. The people of the sand knew it as if it flowed in their blood, and though they did not often take well to outsiders, they would accept one who spoke their tongue. The women veiled themselves with clothes bought from the last of the towns they had passed through; thin gloves on their hands, abaya to hide their forms, and bushiyyah covering their faces, turning them into black ghosts against the bright desert sky. Ping walked freely among the men, gossiping in their native tongue, bartering to share food or chewing tobacco with them, and in return helping them with the fire or carrying water for the horses and camels that made up the mixed train.  
  
They were laughed at for the horses, sometimes, but in general the men seemed to take Ping’s presence with good humour, all roaring at jokes together and slapping their thighs in amusement. It did not take long for Giselle to learn a little of the language as well, and to be able to communicate with the women between a few words and a lot of hand gestures. Aurora kept to herself, frail and fragile and still, and slept curled up closely against Giselle at night despite the heat that left her covered in a sheen of sweat, shaking, and clutching at the water skins that were pressed to her lips each morning.  
  
They passed through a few oasis-towns, mostly tent dwellings clustered around the waterholes with camels nearby and people flitting to and forth between the shade of the trees. It was almost two weeks before Agrabah came into sight, a great walled city rising out of the desert, the golden onion domes of the Palace rising above the walls. The whole city seemed veiled by the heat; Ping exchanged significant glances with his companions and fell back to ride alongside them as the great wooden gates came nearer.  
  
The white walls of the city had grown taller; it could faintly be seen that there was a division in the walls where the walkways had been removed and then more bricks added. Faint white lime dust made it look powdery and soft against the red lacquer of the doors, the blackened iron that held them up. The gates stood wide open, but guards milled around outside, wearing black armour and red turbans, and with gleaming sabres at their sides.  
  
They were shouting in their own tongue, waving some people through. The heat rolled in waves through the air, reflected off the white city walls and the glinting metal; the air throbbed with the voices of the men and women shouting at and to each other. Aurora seemed to waver in her saddle; Giselle drew closer and put one hand on her thigh comfortingly, seeing the bow of her head beneath the black fabric.  
  
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “There will be shade inside.”  
  
Aurora did not reply, and turned her head away as Ping leant down in the saddle to speak to one of the guards, gesticulating expressively. Sweat was beading on his forehead with the weight of the armour he was wearing to meet with the guards, rolling down the back of his neck and glistening in the sun. One of the guards, tall and thin with gold earrings glinting against his sun-darkened skin, swaggered along the line and paused, looking over the horses upon which the women rode. For most of the distance they had ridden astride their horses, the broad legs of their pants shielding even the form of their legs from view, but as the city had neared they had moved uncomfortably to being seated sideways, legs pressed piously together and heads bowed, not speaking and imitating the postures of the other women.  
  
Giselle watched from beneath the shadow of her veil as the guard neared, her hand tightening on her horse’s halter. His eyes were narrowed, a thin moustache shadowing his upper lip, then he stopped beside her and grabbed her wrist without warning.  
  
She screamed, tried to wrench her hand away, but he pulled down again, almost dragging her off her horse with the awkward angle at which she was sitting. She felt the dagger on her arm slip, sheath and all, against her sweaty skin, and was on the verge of jumping down altogether when she heard a whinny of protest from Khan, the sound of sharp movements.  
  
“Qef ya jundi! 3” Ping snapped, hand going to the hilt of his sword. The soldier spun in shock, snatching his hand away from Giselle’s wrist as if he had been burnt, and mumbled something without meeting Ping’s eyes. “Raddidi,” Ping added, in the voice of a commander, and the guard said it again, but louder. There was a painful moment, then Ping settled for a look of sharp scorn and jerked his head for the others to follow him into the city.  
  
Not far beyond the walls they slowed, then stopped, dismounting so that they could lead the horses to a fountain for their water. Many of the people who moved through the streets did so in rags, or at least worn and patched clothes; even Giselle knew poverty when she saw it. There was a menace also to the guards, who stalked the streets in pairs or groups of three and sent people, adults as well as clusters of children, scattering before their step.  
  
“What happened at the gate?” asked Giselle quietly as they reached the fountain, the words almost lost beneath the chatter and the sounds of the nearby market. “Should we worry?”  
  
“He said you did not carry yourself like a woman of these lands, and wanted to see if you were a woman at all.”  
  
“Woman or no, I would have had his guts,” she said angrily. Her hand tightened unconsciously in Destiny’s mane, but she caught the uneasy shift and slackened her grip again.  
  
Ping snorted. “And were the law of this land what it once was, I could have had his hand for touching you at all. I am sorry that it seems you and Aurora are to remain in Ping’s shadow.”  
  
“Sometimes shadows are harder to see into,” Giselle replied, and to that at least Ping nodded acceptance.  
  
As the horses slaked their thirst and flicked away flies with their tails, Giselle allowed her eyes to wander – without a movement of her head to give her away – across the sight before her. It was so wild, so alien; she could think of a time when it would have terrified her, and a time before that when she was too naive to feel fear even when she should have done. Her childhood had been lush trees and laughing woodland streams, where even the winter cold had been beautiful, snowy, not something to be feared. The death of her mother had been before she could remember, and though she remembered it with a distant sadness it had never truly stung.  
  
Perhaps when her father did not come back from the hunt she should have known fear rather than just the aching sadness. Known anger. Known despair, even. Known anything but _sadness_ , when sadness was such a wilted half-emotion to feel.  
  
“Should we move?” Aurora said, startling Giselle though the words were clearly meant for Ping. He paused with a frown, then glanced up to the city walls still within view, a pair of silhouetted figures walking along it.  
  
“Yes,” he replied. “We should get a feel for the city, perhaps see if we can find the Palace. Come, we can walk, give the horses a rest.”  
  
With bridles in hand, they could not walk as close together as they usually would, and Giselle could see from a glance around that women were not expected to walk at the sides of any man who might have been with them. She found herself holding Destiny’s bridle in her left hand and letting the fingers of her right brush against the hilt of the dagger she carried, appreciating at least that the clothes she wore hid her wariness.  
  
The Palace rose up above the skyline, but the streets that might have led towards it twisted and turned, some turning so narrow that the horses could not go down them, some sweeping away in the opposite direction than they had started. It was frustrating, especially as the heat seemed to grow drier around them, and Giselle could see annoyance written on Ping’s face.  
  
Eventually she stepped forward, letting Destiny walk freely for a moment, and touched his elbow lightly. He cocked his head in her vague direction without looking round. “Yes?”  
  
“There’s a tavern there,” Giselle said, pointing to a building emanating chatter and laughter, though more muted than they had seen before. “Perhaps you could speak to some people.”  
  
“You would need to wait outside,” he replied.  
  
“Then we can see some people.”  
  
Again, a cautious nod; she could read easily enough that he some fear of this place had crept into him. She knew that it would not be the foreignness of the land, not for him; there was no reason this land would be any stranger than Aurora’s, or Eirlys’s, or any of the others in which they had found themselves over their time together. But there was something that unsettled him all the same, and his uncertainty did not help her own unease.  
  
They tied off the horses in the makeshift stable to the rear to the tavern, little more than a wooden lean-to with a long tray of greyish grain at the bottom. It seemed dry enough to the touch, with no sign of disease, but Khan turned his head away with an emphatic snort and the others followed suit.  
  
Giselle had said that they would watch people, and for a while they did, sitting in one of the shadowed alcoves in imitation of the other few women in the yard, who sat in small clusters and talked between themselves, occasionally going over to the well for water and bringing it back in pottery jugs and cups. From where they sat they could see one of the more main roads, with people walking – or occasionally running – back and forth along it: a group of children, barefoot and ragged but laughing still; a veiled and robed woman with exotic patterns on her clothes carrying a tall water-jar on her head; a young man with a basket under his hip calling for custom as he proffered the seeds within for sale.  
  
Her mind, though, did not take long to wander. Perhaps it was the heat, she decided; normally she found it easier than this to focus, to learn to read a city and its people. When she had first found herself in this world she had not known it – then again, finding herself suddenly below water and struggling to the surface, she had found no-one at all. Her heavy dress, sodden and muddy, was like dragging wood through the snow as she had tried to find someone, anyone, even a path, in the dark quiet wood in which she found herself.  
  
  
  
  
  
She had wandered, far and long as she would have put it then; for too long, she would say now. Eventually, a little frightened but sure, quite _sure_ that things would turn out well in the end, she had managed to wriggle into the hollow of an old, dead tree and arrange her dress in such a way that she could sleep. The cold had become a lull by then, comforting, almost welcoming, and in hindsight she was astonished that she had awoken at all after giving in so utterly to it.  
  
But still she had not recognised the world.  
  
Yes, it was a forest, but it was not of the sort that she had known. The animals did not come when she sang, and those birds which she even came close to did not speak, but flew away with unintelligible twitters. It had not been bright and sunny, but shadowed and cold, and she recognised few of the berries or mushrooms that she had eaten in Andalasia, in the place she had called _home_.  
  
Finally she returned to where she had first stumbled into the world, and found a stream, and on the stream a village, a cluster of maybe fifty or so houses with a watermill, a small wooden temple, a handful of tradesmen who served the needs of the surrounding farms as well. It had felt as if it had taken forever, though it had been only two days, but finally she found people again and almost cried with gratitude.  
  
First she had asked for help, but had been turned away. Then she had begged, and had been laughed at. Finally, steeling herself, she took apart her beautiful dress and managed to produce from it something more wearable, mostly white again after being washed in the river, serviceable and with an apron to protect herself. On the third day she went to them humbly, and offered service in return for food or a bed for the night, and though sleeping in haylofts or wrapped in a blanket on kitchen floors was far less comfortable than she had imagined, it was more tolerable full than hungry, easier slaked than thirsty, safer warm than cold.  
  
But winter was closing in, and in the words of the people in the village she heard a _fear_ of the cold. In their words she discovered a winter that froze, that hurt, that killed the weak or poor or just plain unlucky to be caught in its grasp at the wrong moment. She thought of the glittering frost fairies she had seen in her childhood skating feathers of ice onto the water, and wondered how winter here could be so different.  
  
She had never stopped thinking of Edward, never stopped singing to him as she looked at the unfamiliar stars in the sky, alone at night. She simply became used to coping without him.  
Soon there was no spare food, even for a girl willing to work, and though families would still offer her places to sleep they had no bread, no fruit, no wine to offer her. Finally, beneath the light of a full moon and with an ache in her belly, she turned determined steps back along the stream in search of the magical door which must have bought her to this realm.  
  
In the light it was less frightening, though the trees were bare with the winter as they clustered around the welling spring at the head of the stream. It formed a pool, perhaps five feet in diameter, but when she found the longest fallen branch she could, it did not reach the bottom of the pure black circle. The sensation of drowning washed over her in a wave of memory, and a trickling fear took hold of her, but she did not even have time to pull the branch away before it was ripped out of her hands.  
  
Stumbling back, she had cried out, but by then the water was whirling, bubbling, steam coursing into the air even though there was no heat to accompany it. Giselle shielded her eyes, fearing what might rise to meet her, until-  
  
“Giselle?”  
  
She had looked around in astonishment, for a moment utterly unable to speak.  
  
“Giselle!”  
  
Arms wrapped around her, drew her to standing, and then spun her into the air before she could catch her breath. The movement made her giddy, even sick, and she staggered back as soon as she was released to see Edward looking at her in joy that was turning quickly to confusion.  
  
“Giselle, my love, what is it?”  
  
He was still wearing white. His wedding clothes. But it had been almost two months, such time that they stood below a full moon that echoed the one Giselle had found herself beneath the first night that she had stepped out of the same pool.  
  
“You’re here,” she said weakly.  
  
“Why yes, of course! Your chipmunk friend told me that you had fallen into this well-” something in her mind said _pushed_ , but she could not remember why “-and I came to rescue you. Come, we shall return to Andalasia!”  
  
He had grabbed hold of her hand before she could say a word, protest or gratitude either, and leapt with both feet back into the pool. Now, though, it reached only to the middle of his shiny brown boots, and he looked down in bewilderment.  
  
“It’s magic,” said Giselle, without even having to think this time. “It must have closed again… oh, Edward…” worry had filled her, more focused on the thought of returning _him_ to Andalasia than getting back herself; after all, _he_ was the prince. “Wait – Pip! You said that Pip told you!”  
  
“Why, yes,” Edward had replied, finally looking up from his muddy feet where he stood, still, in the middle of the pond. “I told him that if I did not return immediately, he was to inform my mother-”  
  
“Your mother…” something tugged at her mind, like a song almost forgotten, but still she could not place it. A face that had held echoes of another face, a voice that held echoes of another voice. Before she could even think further, though, the water beneath his feet began to darken and stir again, and she pulled him out of the spring with a cry. “Look out!”  
  
He clutched her to his chest, and even then a whisper in the back of her mind had asked what he thought he could protect her from by doing so, and then with a ripple of _something_ that she felt as much as saw, something the colour of a starling’s wing and as cold as a final breath, Queen Narissa rose elegantly out of the pool, her perfect gown not even damp around the edges.  
  
“Oh, Edward,” she said, sounding more disappointed than anything else.  
  
His face split into a wide grin. “Mother! I say, I told that chipmunk to wait a while…” he tried to tug Giselle by the hand towards the Queen, though she resisted. “Come, I have found Giselle. We should hurry, or the priest will leave!”  
  
Queen Narissa’s eyes, though, were fixed on Giselle. They were dark, almost black, but something seemed to stir deep within them that Giselle felt like a tremor in her bones. “Of course,” said the Queen, drawing from behind her back a shining apple, one side red and the other green. “Before we go back, though, we need to each… take a bite. The journey is dangerous otherwise.”  
  
“I’m sure that I’ll be fine,” Giselle began. “I came here without…”  
  
Without even looking round, the Queen raised the apple to her lips, sinking her teeth into it with a crisp, sharp crunch. Giselle fell silent as Narissa chewed on the apple, then swallowed, leaving a perfect white bite mark against the green skin. She held it out. “Here, child. You should go next. I wouldn’t want you to be at risk…”  
  
Still she hesitated. Her stomach ached so badly that when she had first felt hunger this bad, she had not believed it. Slowly, Giselle had held out her hand, feeling the apple roll into it, the juice running from its split skin on her fingers. She could smell it against the forest, sweet and ripe, and it made her mouth water. Never had she known such hunger…  
  
“Come, my dear, I will go next if you are unsure.” Edward plucked the apple from her hands and produced his pocket-knife, slicing off a neat circle, half-green half-red in his gloved hand. It happened in an instant; she saw the flesh beneath the red, as white as bone, crystalline, heard Narissa cry out and try to snatch the apple from her stepson’s hand, but the piece was already in his mouth, between his teeth, in his throat-  
  
Time slowed. The knife fell from his hand, sinking blade-first into the thick black mud around their feet. The apple went next, rolling from his limp fingers, almost reaching the water before he began to crumple at the knees, eyes falling closed as if he slipped into sleep.  
  
Narissa screamed, a sound that turned into a roar and left her with soap-bubble iridescence flashing in her eyes. Edward keeled into Giselle’s arms, suddenly boneless, and she staggered under his weight before falling, gracelessly, onto the muddy bank with the unconscious prince still lying across her lap.  
  
“You forest rat!”  
  
Giselle looked up with astonishment and horror coursing through her. They felt _strong_ , _hard_ , like nothing she had ever felt before. Even happiness or joy had never felt these strong, reverberating in her bones, aching in her head. Narissa was pointing at her, furious, her teeth gleaming white and longer, somehow, than they had been before.  
  
“All you needed to do was stay in this world, but no, he comes looking for you… and now _he_ has eaten your poison!”  
  
“I did not do this.” Giselle had replied, her voice shaking but not small, not any more.  
  
“You started it all,” Narissa sneered. “One month here is but an hour in my land! You should have been long gone before he even realised… your pet will pay for this.”  
  
She struggled out from beneath Edward’s form. Her once-white dress, long since faded to dove grey, was now matted with mud and clinging to her skin, but despite the cold there was something hot boiling in her veins. She thought that it was anger. “You did this. You tried to kill me, and instead you have killed your own son!”  
  
“My son? Ha!”  
  
Giselle opened her mouth to argue further, but before she could speak Narissa struck her across the cheek so hard that she almost fell again. There was a stabbing to the pain that was worse than a blow, and when she held her hand to her cheek blood was dripping from it. She glanced down to see the talons on Narissa’s hands.  
  
“You, you… witch!”  
  
The water beneath them seemed to boil, erupting into clouds of steam once again as Narissa gave an inhuman hiss, her eyes gold with slit pupils. The air crackled like static, only a thousand times more powerful, but then Giselle felt her hands wrapping around Narissa’s wrists, the Queen’s skin as cold as the air and as rough as scales to the touch, and something like heat burst forth from her.  
  
“ _You will not harm him._ ”  
  
She had never spoken so fiercely, never with such conviction. Her eyes met Narissa’s, and then there was fire, but it was contained, somehow, boiling beneath Narissa’s skin for as long as Giselle’s hands stayed, clamped, white-knuckled, in place. Narissa screamed again, animal, _terrified_ , but then her eyes filled up with fire and with a noiseless explosion that sent shockwaves through the air, she was gone.  
  
The world rocked, or at least it had seemed so until Giselle had realised that it was she who was rocking, and dropped to her knees because it seemed like the only thing she could do. She picked the apple from the water, and felt somehow the magic in it, though she had never so much as seen magic before. She turned back to Edward again, his placid face and splayed hair; he slept, but did not quite sleep, caught just on the brink of death by the mixed magic he had consumed. She shook his shoulder, dragged him upright to hit him between the shoulderblades, but the apple had been eaten, not merely lodged in his throat, and there was nothing to shake it loose.  
  
Night began to fall as she turned back to the springhead once again, tears in her eyes. “Please,” she whispered. “I only have until midnight.”  
  
The water did not answer her. She wondered why she had expected it to.  
  
The tears began rolling down her cheeks, hot on her almost-numb skin. “Water, water under sky,” she whispered, more from instinct than knowledge. “Part your waters, let me by.”  
  
Ripples started in the centre, the muddy clouds disappearing to leave it as dark as ink once again. Giselle drew in a shuddering breath and looked down at Edward, draped gracelessly over her lap. He looked pale, almost blue in the moonlight, but she could remember how he had glowed with life when they had met.  
  
“Water, water under night,” she said, voice wobbling but firmer now. “Give unto my Prince respite.”  
  
The ripples seemed to turn, become a whirl, and then they faded as a flat whirlpool opened up within the water itself, the central cone reaching down into blackness. She struggled to her feet, hands under Edwards’s armpits to try and move him as well, and turned him in the mud so that his feet were pointed towards the spring. If nothing else, this should have been more elegant than this; he should have slid gracefully beneath the water with song and flashes of light, not been pushed with numb hands and accompanied by words which she _knew_ without being taught, _understood_ without being explained.  
  
“Water, water at my feet,” she finally said, voice rising to become perhaps something like a command. “Protect him; this I thee entreat.”  
  
Now there was smoke, and flits of blue-white fire that burned without wicks in the air. Edward slipped from her hands, taken effortlessly, and she watched the water fold itself around him and draw him down into its depths. It lasted for an interminable moment, and then the water became smooth again, and she watched him slip like a ghost beneath its surface and into darkness. A blink, and then the depth was gone, and all that was left was a gently stirring spring, pooling at her feet and running into the darkness.  
  
“Take care of him,” she begged, not sure why she was begging the water but unable to find herself doing otherwise. “Until… until I know how to save him.”  
  
She never had been able to remember how she made her way back to the village, remembering clearly only the fact that she did so and the fact that she arrived with the apple still clutched in her hand. She managed to struggle through another month, not on the kindness of the people but certainly with their help, and hid the apple in her apron and was not sure whether it filled her with more hope or fear as it did not wither.  
  
When the next full moon came, winter’s bite had become heavier, and there was snow on the ground as she struggled back to the spring once more. She spoke to the water, and again for a moment glimpsed Edward’s face, held in sleep and waiting for an answer which she did not yet have. Her footprints in the mud revealed a glint of metal, and she dug down to find his knife, now rusted and muddy, from all those days before. For a moment Giselle weighed it in her hand, then cut a thin slice and threw the apple into the pool. It sank into invisibility, the knife following it.  
  
She was about to leave when a sharp snorting noise caught her attention, and she spun on the step to see a white horse, picking through the snow with tentative steps. For a moment, recognition stirred but could not rise, and then she recognised Edward’s horse.  
  
“Hey, boy,” she said softly, walking round. The horse shied back a step, tossing its head, but she waited patiently until he regarded her with one dark eye and then stepped closer again. “You come looking for your master?”  
  
He huffed slightly, nostrils giving a puff of smoke, as she reached out to stroke his nose. The name rose a moment later, from when Edward had spoken about him.  
  
“Destiny,” she said softly. The horse nudged against her palm as if expecting food, and Giselle realised with a wince that she had no way, in this village, to look after him. Perhaps it was time to turn her feet south, and find something more like a town, where she might have more luck with work. “I’m afraid Edward isn’t… here, right now. Looks like you’ve got me instead. You going to be okay with that?”  
  
Destiny gave another snort and a toss of his head that might almost have been a nod, and Giselle managed a weak laugh in response. She didn’t bother with goodbyes before leaving the village, turning further west towards the town that she had heard of, but had been too afraid to go to – too afraid of newness, and yet not afraid enough of staying still, she supposed.  
  
The cut on her face healed, but turned to a silver scar that clipped off the end of one eyebrow and ran down almost to the corner of her mouth. The inn who took her in as a servant seemed more annoyed about Destiny’s presence than hers, though she supposed that a human body took up less space than that of a horse. It took her a while longer to understand what the magic she now found herself with could do, and to learn that it was stranger in this land than it had been in hers.  
  
After a while, she placed the never-withering slice of apple in a vial, and closed it with cork and wax. Every time that she looked at it, she remembered Edward, the apple on his lips, the poison meant for her that left him sleeping. She promised herself that he would not die for her; that none would die on her account.  
  
  
  
  
  
3 \- "Stop, soldier!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**  
  
The air was warm and still, with the merest breaths of wind, as if the heat made it heavy. The innkeeper had looked at them suspiciously, but then again it had seemed that all of Agrabah had, and they had borne it much as before.  
  
As Ping closed the door behind them, Giselle ripped her veil from her face with a gasp for air, wiping first her forehead and then he nose with the back of her hand.  
  
“How can they bear it?” she declared, throwing the black fabric down upon the low bed. “In the desert it was bad enough, but the city...”  
  
Ping shrugged. “Like any clothing, I suppose you become used to it.” He reached to unbuckle his armour with a groan. “Still, at least now we are within the city...”  
  
“But not the Palace,” said Giselle. She looked around for something of a seat, then gave up and lowered herself down onto the bed. Aurora had already taken the windowsill, peering out through the fabric shades to the city below as she carefully unwrapped her own bushiyyah, not disturbing the chignon of hair beneath.  
  
“This city is so quiet,” Aurora said softly, the others turning to look all the same. “It reminds me of Waking.”  
  
Rarely had Aurora spoken of those dreadful days that had formed her, though occasionally she had spoken with a faint wistfulness of her childhood. It had been one night when she had awoken screaming that she had told them through tears some of what had passed: awakening in a kiss only to have Philip slip to death in her arms, the castle silent and sleeping, none reacting to her cries or pleas for them to awaken.  
  
She had not spoken of what they had seen over and over in her pictures: the green-skinned body of a woman whose draining blood had seemed to spring back from the ground as thorns; the three statues of women pleading with the air with their torn, stripped-to-bone hands. They had never asked, even when she burnt the pictures and the flames guttered before her kneeling form. It had been enough.  
  
In those days, she had said once, was when she first began to dream as she did now.  
  
“I talked to people once who spoke of Agrabah as a thriving place,” said Ping with a frown, tearing his eyes away from Aurora. “This was some years ago, they said, when the last Sultan was still upon the throne. Now it keeps almost to itself.”  
  
“How can they survive?” asked Giselle. She pulled her abaya over her head, revealing a sweat-streaked white tunic and dark grey pants that tucked into her boots. “This far from the sea...”  
  
“Trade,” said Ping, “and agriculture. If they irrigate the land, they can probably produce enough food to feed themselves. There must be some source of water here, after all. Or perhaps there is some magic at work; there is enough fear in these lands that there might be.” He crossed to the window as well, leaning close to the sheer fabric to look out over the streets below. As night fell, the world was painted in blues and greys, torches lit at the corners of the streets seeming to do nothing to bite into the dark. “We need to reach the Palace. If this has come since the new Sultan took the throne, the answers will be there.”  
  
“It’s all very well saying that,” said Giselle darkly. She ran her hands through her hair, tousling the thick waves, then twisted it back into a braid once again. “But how are we supposed to do so?”  
  
“A gift for the Sultan,” came Aurora’s words, and as so often she caught the others by surprise. She was looking down into her lap where her fingers toyed with her veil, the fabric black on black and nigh invisible. “From your Emperor, Ping. In exchange for gold, or silk.”  
  
“My land has enough silk,” he replied, the words a little too sharp.  
  
Aurora shrugged mildly, one errant strand of her hair slipping down alongside her face. “In any case, this is how it is done. Produce a gift for them, an official-looking scroll, and all will be good.” An orange glow filtered through from outside, brushing against her skin but not seeming to warm it, then whoever was carrying the torch passed on, and she fell into shadow again. “I cannot imagine that much changes from my land to this.”  
  
Ping’s response was a grunt, a frown, as he lowered piece after piece of armour to the ground and stretched his neck from side to side. Aurora did not respond, but Giselle watched carefully, used to the changing opinions of their older companion, the way that his jaw would tense when he was displeased with something that he had heard. That same expression was hardening on Ping’s face now, the concern that must have come with more time with a sword in his hands. “A good plan, perhaps, if we had a gift for them. “  
  
“Then offer me,” Aurora said. She turned, settling upon them the clearest gaze that Giselle had ever seen upon her face, the sharpest use of those bright purple eyes. She rose to her feet, standing with her shoulders back, posture elegant even beneath the swathes of cloth that she wore, and tilted her chin. “A seer – surely that is a worthy gift?”  
  
“Aurora, no,” Ping said flatly. “You are no thing to be given away! I will not risk you like this.”  
  
“I trust you enough that there will be no risk,” came the soft reply. Aurora crossed to Ping, placing her hand on his shoulder, then turned to look to Giselle with her expression soft and piercing both at the same time. “I have dreamt this.”  
  
Rarely did Aurora say something with such certainty in her voice; whenever she did, she said that it came from her dreams. Once, and only once, Giselle had wondered whether each dream passed as she said, but such thoughts had passed in a moment at the memories she had of Aurora waking from her nightmares, her visions, sometimes with blood in her mouth from biting her tongue in her sleep. She could not believe that Aurora would conjure things.  
  
“You are sure that there is enough to be gained by this?” said Ping, before Giselle could even reach for words.  
  
“Yes,” Aurora replied, her voice falling to a whisper. “And there is much danger if we do not.”  
  
“Very well then,” he said. “After all, we always do what we must.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**  
  
They readied themselves to leave in the morn, but none could find sleep, and all ended up waiting for the sun to rise in order that they might have reason to move on again. Finally the sun breached the horizon, red and hot and stifling already, and there was a flurry of activity in return. Ping had shined his armour in the night, returning it to a gleaming silver against the green and black fabric, and he wore it like regalia with his sword ready at his side. Beneath her abaya, Giselle carried a knife in the crook of her right arm, another at her thigh, and the single slice of poisoned apple-flesh in a stoppered glass bottle at her throat. Once shrouded in black cotton, though, with the fabric falling more easily on her frame as she became used to wearing it, she became a shadow once again, and with her head bowed and posture unassuming she all but vanished from sight.  
  
Between the others, Aurora sat like a statue. She wore the fragments of her fine blue dress, the fabric still almost garishly bright with the magic that had coloured it. Though with time strips had been torn from the bodice, or holes made in the skirt, or blood in a bright breath-pattern across her heart, it held its shape still, stern and sharp-lined. She rose to her feet and allowed Giselle to help her into her own abaya, shielding the colours, then stood and allowed her veil to be tied into place as well with a bow of her head, a closing of her eyes.  
  
Ping watched with troubled anger in his gaze as they prepared themselves, then nodded gruffly to the door. “Come on, then. I’ve found a couple of street kids to accompany us; they’ll carry the bags.”  
He did not look round as they approached the Palace, as he spoke to the guards with perfect command in his voice and presented the scroll that he had written that very night. The guards pored over it, turned it the wrong way, muttered between themselves and called for a translator only to discover that none could be found. After an eternity, it seemed, they were allowed in, the great gates of the Palace falling closed behind them with a deafening thud.  
  
Their bags were taken from them – to be searched, Giselle was sure – and they were allowed in through the fine inner gates. Inside the Palace, the air became noticeably cooler, the whitewash walls and terracotta tiled floors gleaming dully. Ushered to a waiting room, they were closed in whilst the guards stood outside the doors.  
  
Giselle did not even need to ask whether they were being watched. She did not even raise her veil as she gazed around the room, the gilded, arched windows with their fine carved shutters, the opulent red stripe around the centre of the walls. There were several low couches with what looked to be velvet cushions in bright, jewelled colours, embroidered with gold and beads, but all three remained standing. There was a whisper of movement from beyond one of the walls, and Giselle looked sharply over her shoulder towards it, but there was no sign of a door. She wondered whether some of the gold and red pattern that crossed the wall concealed eyeholes, and bent her wrist to brush her fingertips against the reassuring cool metal of her knife.  
  
Finally the door opened, and a young woman, dressed in purple robes and glassy-eyed, bowed to them. “The Sultan will see you.”  
  
“Come,” said Ping to the others, and they fell into step behind him as if in perfect humility. The young woman led them along corridors, great long rooms with vaulted ceilings and white pillars, and finally stopped before a pair of grand golden doors. They opened before her, revealing the room beyond, and for a moment Giselle’s senses were so struck that she could not unravel everything before her. Finally things began to grow clearer, and then she became able to see: the great gold elephants flanking the high thrones, the draped curtains, the displays of gold and jewels that surrounded the dais on which the Sultan and the Princess sat enthroned.  
  
The Sultan was wearing white and gold, a severe and unyielding expression on his face as he looked down towards them, one hand resting on the arm of his throne, the other holding a serpent staff at his side. To his left, and a little below, sat the Princess, wearing a deep emerald silk which, although it covered her body, did nothing to hide her curves beneath its form, the rise and fall of her breasts within their like-coloured bindings, the softly formed harem pants and gold shoes that clad her. A wide gold band sat just beneath her neck, studded with dark green emeralds that glittered as she looked towards them from beneath the shadow of her veil.  
  
They approached, stopped at what seemed like an appropriate point; Ping dropped to one knee as he bowed deeply, whilst the women stood still and silent.  
  
“Aasalaamu Aleikum, Sultan,” said Ping, without raising his head.  
  
“Rise, soldier.”  
  
He looked up in surprise as the Princess spoke, her voice rich and cool and sensuous. It sent a warning shiver down Giselle’s spine. Rings glittered on her hand as she reached to draw her veil from her face, keeping it over the dark curls of hair that tumbled down her back. Her skin was radiantly pale, her eyes kohl-rimmed and smouldering. At her feet sat a slave-boy, his head bowed, holding a goblet and jug on a golden platter.  
  
“I will translate for the Sultan,” she said. “Speak.”  
  
“Sultan Jafar, Princess Jasmine, I am honoured to bring the salutations of the Emperor Yang. In honour of the city of Agrabah he has sent me to extend the hand of friendship of Tiānxià.”  
  
There was a muted moment whilst the Princess turned to address her husband, the tongue sounding to Giselle’s ears similar to, but not quite the same as, that which she had heard from the soldiers and the people of the city. The Sultan replied in brief, snapped words, and the Princess turned to them again.  
  
“What has bought you to Agrabah by name? There are many Kingdoms in these deserts.”  
  
“It has been said that the new Sultan might be willing to speak where other Kingdoms have not. Only the Land of the Black Sands has otherwise been receptive.”  
  
The slightest curl of disdain came to the Sultan’s face, as if even without translation he knew of the land of which they spoke. Ping had said that he knew there was a threat coming from the land, although its young Prince seemed a competent and intelligent enough man. Then again, perhaps that was why he was perceived as a threat. The Princess’s eyes narrowed slightly.  
  
“And we hope also that our gift will here be well received. We have heard that the land of Agrabah is not so afeared of magic as are some.”  
  
There was another silence, this one longer, and this time the Princess did not remove her eyes from them as she spoke quietly in her own tongue. Words were exchanged between them, and finally the Princess pursed her lips and looked at them with a new edge of caution to her gaze.  
  
“What is your gift, soldier?”  
  
“I bring to you a seer,” said Ping, though Giselle could see from where she stood the tension in his throat. He stepped to the side and Aurora, head still bowed, moved forward to stand beside him. She curtseyed deeply, in the way of the northern lands, and the Princess’s expression moved to a smirk.  
  
“Let me see this... ‘seer’.”  
  
Condescension dripped from every word. Ping nodded to Giselle, who stepped up and gently undid the knot that bound Aurora’s veil in place. The fabric fell away, and even with her back to the Sultan and Princess, Giselle could not fail to hear the gasps of surprise. Aurora’s hair had been brushed to gleaming gold and trailed down beyond her shoulders in broad curls; even without makeup, her face had a ghostly beauty about it, high cheekbones and long lashes on her deep lilac eyes. Her lips were soft, pink, full and slightly parted as she raised her gaze to those sat before her. She dropped her shoulders back as Giselle stepped round to remove the abaya also, revealing the blue dress, the gleaming pale lines of her shoulders, her slender frame.  
  
“So...” said the Princess. “This is the gift you offer us. Tell me, seer, what tongue do you speak?”  
  
“This one, your Highness,” replied Aurora. Her voice was low, but carried across the throne room and rang from the piles of gold.  
  
“Very well. And how is it that your visions are found?”  
  
“In my dreams, your Highness.”  
  
The Princess paused, nodded slowly, then again turned to the Sultan and exchanged words with him. At one point he reached out his hand towards her, and her fingertips ghosted across his wrist, then he gave a sharp nod and a word that sounded in any language to be approval, and the Princess turned back towards them. “We accept your gift, soldier, and would like to extend in return the friendship of the Kingdom of Agrabah to you and to your Emperor. A suitable gift will be prepared for you in return; in the meantime, we ask that you stay within the Palace.”  
  
“It would be an honour, Princess,” said Ping, with another deep bow, though this one came only from the waist.  
  
“Very well,” she said again. She gestured to the young man sitting at her feet, who set aside his platter and rose. “Aladdin will show you to your chambers. The seer will be taken care of. Although... one question.”  
  
“Yes, Princess?”  
  
“Whenceforth did she come?”  
  
There was not even a pause before Ping replied: the tale that they always used, so easy to form into the truth. “She was cast from her world by a jealous Queen, and the portal left her in ours. I was one of those who found her.”  
  
The Princess nodded, her eyes still thoughtful, then with a gesture of her hand dismissed them. Aurora waited patiently where she stood as, heart pounding, Giselle turned to follow Ping and the man that had been called Aladdin from the room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**  
  
They did not speak much that day. When food was bought to them, Ping looked first to Giselle, and her hand would steal beneath her bushiyyah for a moment before she looked to him, nodded, and they allowed themselves to eat. Giselle remained within the room, reading a little but unable to concentrate on the books, whilst Ping roamed throughout the chambers that they had been given examining the furniture, the paintings, every inch. The look on his face was curiosity; that in his eyes was wariness.  
  
Giselle tried not to think of Aurora. When she did, her hands trembled and she had to put aside the book that she was trying to read. Again and again, her hand would creep to the glass vial at her throat; it remained constantly warm, a little more so than it would be from her body, warning of the danger that surrounded them.  
  
That night she changed clothes beneath her robes to sleep, and Ping removed his armour but remained in a long, loose tunic. They slipped beneath the sheets as familiarly as if they were indeed the lovers that they were no doubt expected to be, lying face-to-face propped on their sides and talking in low voices.  
  
“All will be well,” said Ping softly. “She knows how to conduct herself.”  
  
She knows how to take care of herself. If she needs us, she will act.  
  
Giselle understood the message beneath the words well enough, but was for a moment annoyed that Ping could not see the frown on her face. “I would be happier were I able to talk to her still.”  
  
“Impossible,” he said flatly. “She is in the care of the Sultan now.”  
  
Too dangerous. She is under the guard of the Sultan.  
  
She said nothing more, and rolled onto her other side, facing away from him. For a moment his hand came to rest on her shoulder, then she heard him shift as well and felt their cover moving. Her eyes stung, and she squeezed them tightly shut and told herself that it was the dryness of the air that bought moisture to them.  
  
She would have expected that it would take a long time for her to fall asleep, her mind still nervous and flighty, but her body knew better than to linger awake when it did not need to and she soon slipped into darkness. One hand curled around the hilt of the knife beneath her pillow like a comfort, the other lying close to her breast, her brow furrowed even in sleep, beneath the dark and the veil.  
  
It was not light that awoke her. A shock ran through her spine like magic, not painful but sharp, and her eyes snapped open. Without letting her breathing change, Giselle let her attention spread throughout the room, but saw no movement; with a murmur as if in sleep she rolled over to face the other side. Still no movement answered her, and the muscles in her shoulders uncoiled, though she remained silently awake for a while longer.  
  
Eventually, the faint sound of footsteps within the walls appeared, then faded, and she knew without checking that they were no longer being watched.  
  
Knife in hand, she slipped from the bed, raising the covers over Ping again without thinking. He slept on, soundly; the sleep of a soldier, she supposed, who must catch his rest where he can. Giselle returned the knife to its hiding-place beneath her abaya, and pulled her black gloves and slippers back on, before ghosting through the two rooms to the door and pausing beside it, ear level to but not pressed against the lock. For a while there seemed to be nothing, then she heard someone shifting their weight, and nodded to herself that there was indeed only one guard waiting on them.  
  
Getting back to her feet, she crossed back, this time entering the small bathing room which they had been given. The stone bath set into the floor stood empty, the veil discreetly drawn over the toilet, though there was a pitcher of water set beside a basin on the far side.  
  
She knew that Ping would have seen exactly what she had earlier, and neither of them had told the other. There were steps down into the bath, narrow cool clay beneath her feet, then Giselle fell to her knees and pressed against the far end wall.  
  
It scraped just a little, and she bit her lip, but then it returned to silence as it slid back just far enough for her to slip through, still on her hands and knees and with her neck feeling terribly exposed, then she glanced up into the dark corridor. There was no sound, no sign of movement, but as she closed the entrance behind her and rose to her knees, her hand brushed across the still-warm metal of an oil lamp set into a narrow slit in the wall.  
  
Breath catching in her throat, Giselle pressed herself close to the wall before continuing down the corridor. It was narrow, perhaps only three feet across, but taller than the rooms in which she had been before. It ran straight for perhaps thirty paces, turned right, and right again, before splitting into two paths. The left remained flat, curving round out of sight, but the right kinked sharply before heading down steps.  
  
She tried to remember what it had been in the dream that had awoken her, knowing that it must have been Aurora’s doing, but could find nothing in her mind. Only Aurora or the work of a magic user could have woken her so, she knew, but usually their companion left her mark on Giselle’s dreamscape before rousing her. This time, there was nothing, and the glass at her neck grew hotter as she took one tentative step to the right, then down the stairs.  
  
There had been no light, but now a red glow met her at the bottom of the stairs, and Giselle’s steps slowed as it began to spill upwards. Eventually she was able to see the torch that sat at the bottom of the stairs, burning with an unnaturally red light, and the closed door beyond it. The floor beneath her feet took on a gritty feel, and she glanced down to step carefully so as not to leave footprints on the sand that was scattered across the steps.  
  
The air felt hot, tight, and the vial at her neck almost burned. She could feel her throat tightening, a sensation in her head like it was tightening in; she could not have ignored the magic in the air if she tried.  
  
The door was wooden, heavyset, slightly blackened with age or soot. The door furniture was made of iron, gleaming dully in the red light, but when her fingers brushed against the hinges they felt icy to the touch. Cold iron, she thought grimly, and dropped to one knee in front of it to look through the keyhole.  
  
She half-expected for the key to be in it still, but mercifully it was not, and the room beyond came into a red-stained focus. It looked to be a circular room, stone walls bare, with torches every two or three paces all sharing the same red hue. White sand covered the floor, scuffed and covered in footsteps, surrounding the plinth at the centre of the room. It looked to be made of one solid piece of white stone, too pure for even marble, the edges so sharp they looked almost ready to cut the air. Into the top of the plinth, a semi-sphere had been hollowed out; some six inches above, floating in its own cold light, was a glass globe swirling with clouds of red smoke. It had nothing holding it up, nothing suspending it, and Giselle tightened at the pain that shot through her bones as the waves of magic from the room washed over her.  
  
“Arish ka jurun, baran irra,” boomed a sudden voice, and she almost lost her balance with the force of the words. There was something _old_ in them, something dangerous, and the hand that supported her on the floor curled into a fist and shifted her weight to her knuckles. Sweat beading on her brow, Giselle leant closer to the door. The voice had been deep, rasping, with an uneven sound almost as if there had been multiple voices speaking at once. “Ukrun.”  
  
Movement caught her eye, and she shifted sideways. From one side of the pillar came the sultan, now dressed all in black and with soot smeared across his face, his eyes shining with reflected light. From nowhere, a white-gold fire burst into life beneath the sphere, simmering low flames, and in the depths of the red smoke Aurora appeared again. This time her blue dress was new, in finest wool, and she had a tiara upon her head as she swept forwards, reaching out, a smile lighting up her beautiful, young – so painfully young – face.  
  
It lasted only a moment, then smoke began to billow from the floor beneath her feet. Aurora’s figure stopped, screamed, flames consuming her, and she reached upwards to the sky with arms that melted to bone. A swirl of sand danced around her, then the ground itself opened up, like the mouth of a giant cat, and bore down ferociously upon Aurora and the shadowed figures that now appeared around her.  
  
The pain of the magic laid before her became too much. Getting back to her feet, Giselle turned back up the stairs, even as the walls around her seemed to shake with the force of the word that followed: “Ukrun. Ukrun! Ukrun!”  



	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**  
  
The air trembled around her as she fled back along the route that she had taken, hand scrambling beneath her abaya to draw the glass vial away from her skin. It burnt her hand when she touched it; even the thin leather strip upon which it hung was almost unbearably hot. Giselle’s hands shook as she pulled the doorway closed behind her and tumbled back into the bed. Ping finally flew awake, knife appeared in his hand and with its point at Giselle’s throat.  
  
“What are you _doing_?” he hissed, finally lowering the knife and hauling the sheets higher on his body again.  
  
“I just... they...” Giselle had to stop, putting one hand to her mouth over the veil, then she reached up and pulled it away. The cooler night air – not cold, this land never seemed to be cold – washed over her skin, and as she brushed her hand tentatively over the vial at her neck it seemed to be cooling slightly. “I followed the path from her chambers,” she whispered. She was kneeling over Ping, their faces only inches apart and just about visible in the darkness of the room. Even so, it felt like her voice was carrying too much. “The Sultan is a user of dark magic, I am sure of it.”  
  
There was a sound of footsteps outside their door, and they both looked round sharply. Ping grabbed Giselle’s arm and pulled her back beneath the bedclothes again, the shaking of her body surely tangible to him by now. They curled close together, both half-holding their breath, and then the footsteps receded again and Ping gave the softest of sighs.  
  
“What happened?” he said quietly.  
  
“I followed the path to a hidden chamber,” she replied. “The magic grew stronger as I grew closer. I finally came to a room absolutely full of dark magic, and I could see the Sultan inside.”  
  
“Do you know what he was doing?”  
  
She shook her head furiously in a tumble of red curls. “It was something to do with Aurora. There was an image of her – being consumed in flames!”  
  
Ping made a hushing sound as Giselle’s voice threatened to rise. “Is there anything that you will be able to do to give us some protection?”  
  
“My magic is nowhere near this in power,” she said.  
  
He frowned, expression stern though she could see that he was trying to lie as if relaxed still. “Anything at all?”  
  
Giselle looked away for a moment, hand rising to flutter at her throat once again, this time not led by her thoughts. “If I can get to the market, I may be able to find something that will offer us protection. But I can make no promises.”  
  
A curt nod. “Good. Then do so. We cannot do anything until tomorrow nightfall, in any case. “  
  
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “I do not want to leave Aurora in their hands for any longer than is necessary.”  
  
“Neither do I,” he snapped, as much as could be done in a whisper, then with one last cold glare rolled over onto his other side to make it clear that their conversation was over.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**  
  
The other women were frightened of her.  
  
Aurora could see that easily, in the way that they had scattered from the room when she entered, in the way that they now whispered behind their hands and shot looks from beneath the dark waves of their hair. She could barely tell them apart: they were all lustily-curved, dusky-skinned, with sweeps of shining black hair and clothes in sumptuous jewel tones. Flowing skirts or the loose pants of this kingdom, fitted or flaring tops, such fine fabric that the shadows of their bodies could just be seen beneath.  
  
She had heard the word ‘harem’ among those said to her by the man – he looked like a man, and moved like one, but his voice was high and there was not the slightest shadow on his chin – who had escorted her there, unceremoniously ushering her in before closing the door behind her. There had been chatter inside, and bright laughter, but silence had fallen at her entrance.  
  
The women had fled to the back of the room, where there were cushions and curtains, and she could smell the wine and food. They jangled and glittered as they moved. She drew her eyes away, without a word herself, glancing around the lower end of the room, which held low seats and what must have passed for entertainment: embroidery, paint. A spinning wheel across the room had caught her eye, but with a suppressed shiver she had walked away, taking one of the seats by the window and folding her hands neatly in her lap to wait.  
  
After a while the talking between the other women had started again. Aurora caught sight of her own reflection in a gold disc that glittered on the wall, the bright blue of her dress, the soft-gold curls of her hair. She wore no jewellery, certainly not the tiara that she had ripped from her head and cast at the feet of the statues that trapped her mothers’ forms. Sometimes she wondered whether it was there still.  
  
She knew that her mind had a tendency to wander. As a girl she had never much cared for her memories; they had become one sweet blur, and she had been convinced in those days that her life would be just the same forever more. Things had been so easy. Now she worked her mind to recall every moment, hold it close, knowing that even if there was pain in her memory, there was also her past, everything that had made her.  
  
Eyes half-closing, she let her mind drift back. To her eighth birthday, when Flora had made a sweet berry pie that had dripped down her chin and almost – almost! – stained her favourite skirt, and Fauna had been the one to rescue it. To when she had been perhaps eleven or twelve, and sitting out in the forest Merryweather had been talking about healing herbs, only for Flora to come and chastise them both for lingering so late, even if Aurora had suspected that the anger in her eyes was for something else as well. To her sixteenth birthday, when she had hurried home with an empty basket and an overflowing heart to tell them of the boy that she had met and would meet again that night.  
  
She could remember the trance. The silk whisper that had drawn her through the fireplace and up the hidden stairs, to the shadow of a spinning wheel that seemed to be made of pure energy, pure _magic_. She remembered the laughing that had seemed so warm, but which now sent chills of remembrance down her spine, as she reached out towards it. Never in her life had she wanted to hold something so much, so desperately. For a moment something had whispered in her mind to stop, something that had the voices of her mothers, but then warmth flooded her again and the last thing that she remembered was the prick of wonderful, beautiful pain on her fingertip.  
  
And while she slept... what dreams.  
  
At least, she had thought that they were dreams. She had seen many things in them, people and lands and users of dark magic. She had seen the birth of the world and what had seemed like end after end. Worlds of fire and ice and great beasts. It was like the dreams had lasted forever, and still sometimes she thought back on them and wondered what they had foretold.  
  
And then there had been the kiss. She could hear the songs that had announced her birth, feel the tug of fairy magic deep within her, as warm lips brushed over hers and life flowed out over her stone limbs again. A smile was already forming on her lips as she opened her eyes, and then-  
  
Then the taste of blood had found her.  
  
Her first thought had been that this was just another dream, but she knew that was only her own desirous heart speaking. As her eyes had opened, Philip had fallen to the floor beside her, and though she did not know the Prince she recognised her forest boy, and with a cry rose to her feet only to fall clumsily to her knees and clutch him to her chest.  
  
“Princess Aurora,” he had breathed.  
  
“Briar Rose. My name is Briar Rose!” She had sobbed the words, holding him in her arms, and as he coughed and convulsed she had felt hot blood spray against her skin. "Philip...” she whispered, though he had never said his name.  
  
He died in her arms. She sat for a long time, numb and frozen on the stone floor with his cooling, bloodied body in her arms, then it dawned upon her that she could hear nothing but her own sobs. No birds outside, no footsteps, no sounds of revelry, not even the cracking of a fire. She stumbled to her feet, the hem of her dress tearing, and stepped out of her tower room to descend the silent steps.  
  
Even the torches had gone out. It was sunset again, the land barely lit, as she made her way into the corridors and came across the first sleeping figure. She remembered crying for help, trying to shake the guard awake, then when he would not respond and simply sighed in his sleep dragging herself upright, running, looking for anyone that might respond. She had screamed her voice to hoarseness, thrown water on the noblemen and women sleeping in the floor of the courtroom, dropped to her knees in front of the King and Queen and looked up at them with eyes full of wonder and now left dry.  
  
“Mother?” she had whispered, the word strange on her tongue. “Father?”  
  
Neither had they responded. It had seemed like an eternity that she had spent searching the castle and its grounds for any sign of life, but it seemed that every one of them slept, peaceful and still. When she finally found the gates, it was only to be torn to shreds by the thick black briars that blocked her path, and shaking she was forced to return to the castle and take a sword from the grip of one of the guards. It took her days, returning repeatedly for water and food from the castle, to clear enough of a path to stumble free of the briars, her dress torn, her skin slashed, her mind aching from the sleep that would no longer come.  
  
It was there that she found the first true body.  
  
Before those days, she had seen perhaps a handful of people in her entire life, and then had all certainly been alive. They had not often eaten meat, back in the woodland cottage, and whenever they had Merryweather had been sure to assure her that the animal had died peacefully.  
  
She had never seen death before. A woman’s body lay sprawled across the road at the edge of the bramble cage, her skin green and eyes misted white, black and purple robes slashed and stained with blood. The smell was rancid, though it seemed that no flies had dared to come near, and Aurora felt bile rise in her throat though there was nothing in her stomach for her to vomit. The woman’s right arm had been slashed open almost from elbow to wrist, with the parted layers of skin and fat and muscle pulling back to reveal bone beneath. The earth around her was stained almost black with her blood, and it seemed that from her the brambles had taken their nourishment.  
  
Something in her recognised the sorceress that had so nearly claimed her, but she had no strength left to much think of her. Fighting for her voice, she called for her mothers, for Flora, Fauna, Merryweather, over and over again until the forest seemed to ring with the echoes of her voice. When she could taste blood in her throat and could scream no more, she turned to song, and flits of black that looked like birds but could only have been their shadows came to her, wrapped their cool smoky claws around her wrists, and led her step by step into the twisted trees.  
  
She did not know how long she spent at the feet of the stone statues that had raised her, how often she stroked their cheeks or tried to hold their ruined hands. Finally sleep found her, and the dreams returned, this time not seeming far-off and faint but hot and vivid and painful to the touch.  
  
When she finally left, it was without her crown and with her hair almost matted together, with Samson’s halter in her hand, with her dress torn and her skin cold but healing, with hunger in her belly and something more aching still in her heart.  
  
Tomorrow, it would be two years to the day. Sometimes her fingertip still ached, ached beautifully, and made her want to lull to sleep once again. Sometimes she remembered how much easier the dreams had been in that first sleep, how wondrous their forms and how painless their completion. Sometimes she wished that she had not awoken to find nightmares laid out before her. But if already the future was for dreaming, she knew the past must be long completed, and it had seemed so much longer than two years.  
  
She did not sleep that night. But more than one of the women around her awoke in terrified, relentless screams.  
  
By morning they would be only more afraid of her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**  
  
Giselle did not understand how Ping could be so calm the next day, even how he could have returned to sleep after they had spoken the night before. She had lain, restless and unsleeping but as if in a daze, feeling the throb of magic that ran through the palace reverberate in her bones like a heavy drum. When she had finally managed to draw herself from the bed, wash and dress, discreetly shielded from the outside world by a screen, she was surprised to find the door open and Ping already standing in the doorway, in plain clothes and not armour this time, laughing and joking with the guards in their own tongue. Hurriedly pulling the veil over her face again, Giselle approached them, noting the silence that fell as one of the guards caught sight of her again.  
  
“Ping,” she said softly, “I must talk to you.”  
  
“They don’t speak our tongue,” he replied, voice warmer than his eyes or words would have suggested. The two guards began to talk to each other in their own language again. “All is well.”  
  
She wasn’t sure that she trusted it to be so. “There are some things which I need from the market. Would it be possible for us to go?”  
  
Ping nodded, then turned to the guards and engaged in another brief but animated conversation with them, complete with grimaces and expressive waves of his hands. Finally he threw his hands up and turned back to her. “The Sultan and Princess have asked that I remain within the Palace. If you want to go, though, they will find a female servant to accompany you, and a guard as well.”  
  
“That sounds fine,” Giselle said, and forced a smile onto her lips though it could not be seen by the others. She hoped that her voice could carry lies in the tones it had once used only for honesty. “Perhaps you should see what their guards have to offer. I am sure that your Captain would be glad to learn.”  
  
A slight frown flickered over his features at the wandering directions which her words took, and she wished for a moment she could tear the veil away and plead with her eyes for him to understand. So often in their time the three of them had communicated in glances and small gestures, without the need for words. She felt stifled beneath thin fabric. “A good idea,” he said finally. “I will request an audience with the captain of their guard.”  
  
She nodded, as if demurely, as he turned back for another exchange with the two men. Giselle could catch the odd word here and there, ‘market’ and ‘woman’, words that she had learnt on their long journey south, but could not piece together most of what was being said. Finally, one of the guards bowed slightly from the waist and disappeared down the corridor, and Ping turned to give her the briefest of nods.  
  
With a flush of relief, Giselle waited for the guard to return, this time accompanied by a figure as shrouded in fabric as was she. They moved with a charming gracelessness, an honesty of movement that was visible even beneath the abaya whose cloth was of coarser fabric than Giselle had seen on any other person in the palace, and when they spoke she realised perhaps why: the woman’s voice had the roughness of common birth, a familiarity that Giselle at least found soothing.  
  
“Sa’eeda,” she said, with a nod of her head. A hand gestured to her chest. “Ismi Sadira.”  
  
“Ismi Giselle,” she replied, knowing at least those words. “Fursa sa’eeda, Sadira.”  
  
Instead of giving directions, and barely waiting for the guard to follow them, Sadira took Giselle’s hand in hers and began walking down the corridor, with a tug that was either impatient or playful in its intentions. Her route did not follow the lines of the grand palace corridors; she slipped behind a tapestry, through a concealed doorway, and then along past plainer rooms in which Giselle could faintly hear the chatter of servants, could smell distant spices and see the shine in the middle of the paths where the most feet had trodden. Sadira was not veiled quite as the others, and her eyes glittered out from between two pieces of fabric, a slight bronzing across the bridge of her nose testament to time in the sun. Although trust needed rather more earning, Giselle decided almost immediately that she liked the woman.  
  
They emerged from a side door into a dusty pathway that led through a roofed corridor to the outer walls of the palace. Sadira glanced over her shoulder when they were a way down the path, and Giselle saw a smile in her eyes as she checked how far behind them the guard was.  
  
“You speak _Fusha_?” she said, turning her eyes back in front of them again as they neared the guarded side gate of the outer walls.  
  
Giselle made a pinching movement with her fingers. “Very little,” she replied, stolen words from a camel herder’s bawdy joke. Sadira nodded amiably.  
  
“What language do you speak?”  
  
“ _Fadrein_?” she said, hearing more than intending it as a question.  
  
A shake of the head. “I do not speak that. Swear, only.” There was a fluidity to Sadira’s words that was belied by Giselle’s understanding of them, she was sure of it. All that she could do was string the words together and fill in the gaps with her own hope.  
  
“You are princess?” The question was clumsy, and Giselle was not sure for a moment whether it was the words themselves or their delivery that made Sadira burst into a full, throaty laugh. “Me, a princess? No, I am _fallah_.” She spat onto the ground at her feet; it made her point well enough.  
  
Yes, Giselle definitely liked her.  
  
~  
  
She had feared that there would be questions asked as to the items that she bought at the market. Giselle was used to the magic of the northern lands, and though she had no doubt that magic here was just as raw and bound to the earth, it was very different to feel fine sand beneath one’s feet than to feel crumbling loamy earth. As it was, she moved through the stalls without much idea of where she was going, using her instinct alone to feel the tugs of things that had even the smallest touch of magic bound up into them. She had been surprised to learn that the whole world here was not magical, more so to find that she had a power here that she had not held in the lands which she once knew. Perhaps it was some small compensation for being torn away.  
  
This land, though, felt alien around her, as if it knew that she and her magic did not belong here. Some of her coins she placed into the white cotton bag which she carried in one hand, the silver cool beneath her fingertips. Little bags of spices followed them: cloves and cinnamon and other things for which she did not catch the name. Salt, at least, was easy enough to find, and lamp oil, as well as thin cotton wicks and a shallow stone bowl to hold it. The fish and meat which she could see already hung still and bloodless, and for that she sighed, but with most of her bartering done through Sadira in any case she could say little.  
  
Frustrated, she at last admitted defeat and returned to the Palace, bag clutched tightly to her as she hurried back to the quarters. She heard the doors close behind her, presuming it was the guards, but turned to find Sadira still in the room.  
  
“Are you all right?” said Giselle, with a worried glance, but Sadira was already pulling off her veil. She had shaggy, dark-brown hair that reached below her shoulders, and a tan to her features.  
  
“You,” said Sadira, as if it did for reply, and gestured to Giselle’s bag. “Magic.”  
  
Giselle blanched. “Oh, no. No, no! I’m not a... sorceress or anything!”  
  
Sadira looked at her as if she did not believe a word of it, then pulled down the neck of her robe to reveal the skin of her upper chest. Gold and red glinted from her sternum; at first Giselle took it for an amulet, then she realised with a muffled gasp that the gold swelled out from beneath Sadira’s skin, and that the red she had thought was ruby was moving, flowing blood.  
  
“I was a sand witch,” said Sadira, still showing the charm as she walked towards Giselle. “This... stops me.”  
  
Slowly, Giselle reached up and unwound her own veil, shaking her head to flick stray hair from her cheeks and to try and escape the questions hounding her. “I use magic,” she admitted. “Though I do not know what I would be called here. Not witch, not sorceress, just...” she trailed off with a shrug. “How did you know?”  
  
At this, Sadira gave a grin. “The old woman in shop? She only talk to people with magic.”  
  
It took a moment for understanding to blossom: the old woman that had peered out from the doorway of one of the shops, gesturing for Giselle to come closer. With a fleeting moment of panic, with memories of how she had nearly been claimed, Giselle had pretended not to see at first and then all but fled elsewhere when the woman started after her. At the time, Sadira had said nothing, and Giselle had thought that it was nothing more than an oddity of the marketplace.  
  
“The guards?”  
  
A shrug. “They are fools.”  
  
The words were a relief. The last thing that Giselle needed was for the Sultan to become aware that there was a user of magic in his halls, especially one who seemed to be part of so strange and sudden a delegation. Giselle bit her lip, then reached across slowly, glancing to Sadira’s gaze for permission and at least receiving no protest, to let her fingers graze over the gold.  
  
It burnt her skin. With a hiss, Giselle drew her hand away and stuck her fingers in a mouth, recovering only after a moment to pull them out. The skin was inflamed, but there was no serious damage. Nevertheless, she looked more cautiously at the charm a second time.  
  
“The Sultan?”  
  
Sadira paused a moment, then gave a grimace. “I don’t know. No _tadhakar_ ,” she said, tapping the said of her head. It was clear enough.  
  
“I don’t know this magic,” said Giselle softly, still thinking of the land that felt uncomfortable beneath her feet. As the sand shifted beneath her steps, so did the magic of this place, evading her. “I don’t know what I can do.”  
  
A look of resignation came over Sadira’s face, and she nodded as she released the neck of her robes and let them hide the gold from sight once again. Giselle wondered whether there had been other magic users over the years, others to whom Sadira had asked the same question, only to receive the same reply. Silence fell between the two women, and then without another word Sadira donned her veil again and left the room, the door all but booming closed behind her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**  
  
Ping returned at midday, when the sun was blazing down and Giselle was sitting in what shade she could find in the quarters, grateful that the plastered walls and tiled floor still felt at least a little cooler than the air. He looked around sternly, then the lines in his brow disappeared with his solder’s demeanour as he helped Giselle to her feet again.  
  
“Did you have any luck in the market?” he said immediately.  
  
She could only shake her head. “This land is strange to me. I have found what I can, but there will not be a lot of power to what I do. I have enough for a basic spell of protection, little more.”  
  
His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she could see that he was trying to smile. “I am sure it will do quite well.”  
  
“What of your morning?” she replied.  
  
A roll of the eyes. “The guards are undisciplined and rowdy, and they seem to have no fear of the Sultan. I have learnt a good deal more crude words today.”  
  
Considering how well Ping had been able to joke even with the people of the caravan, Giselle could not help but smile at the thought.  
  
“Hopefully,” he continued, “they will not be too difficult to overcome if need be.” He nodded towards his things. “The Dragon Sword has laughed at worse enemies.”  
  
That much, at least, Giselle could be quite sure of. Ping did not talk much of his past, staying quieter even than Aurora, even when Giselle had bared hers to them. What of it they had not lived through with her, at least. But she had seen the dragon tattoo that moved on his back, and knew that no hand but his could now draw the sword from its scabbard. When Giselle had once tried to but touch the blade, the vial around her neck had become so cold that ice had formed on its surface, and she had shied away from it for some months afterwards.  
  
Ping took a deep breath. “The Sultan and the Princess have asked that we dine with them, in something over an hour. They wish to talk with me.”  
  
Of course, with Ping. Giselle was not sure whether to feel slighted or comforted by her own invisibility. She simply nodded. “Then we do not have much time. Come with me.”  
  
They crossed back into the bathroom; both had looked it over quite thoroughly, and other than the panel within the bath it seemed to be quite secure. There was an astringent smell in the air, and salt crunched on the ground beneath their feet as Giselle knelt down, and motioned for Ping to do the same opposite her.  
  
“There is dark magic throughout this Palace,” she said quietly. “Even here, I could feel its ripples. I cannot make this too powerful, or it would send waves back.”  
  
Ping nodded; Giselle knew that he did not have much knowledge of the sorts of magic which she had found herself capable of, nor even of the magics of his homeland which had wrapped themselves around him. They were, and that was all. But he had seen her rituals before, as well as her more hurried castings, and understood at least that he should follow her words at all times.  
  
She drew out the stone bowl she had found in the market, filled it with oil and set the already-soaked wick into it. A fingertip pressed it down into the oil, then a gesture of her hand made it rise out again, gently lighting as it did so.  
  
“Bydyern,” she whispered, and the glow of the light became softer, warming as she ran her hands in circular motions around it. On the edge of the bowl she smeared salt, cloves and oil together, then took a silver coin beneath her fingertips and flattened it between them as if it was made of wax. Gently she smoothed it into a scoop, then used it to scrape up some of the reddish mixture from the edge of the bowl.  
  
“Give me your hand,” she said, her eyes half-closed, and Ping proffered his palm to her. She took hold of it and drew it further forward, exposing his wrist; he did not struggle. The edge of the silver was bitingly cold as she drew a line across his wrist in the salt-oil blend.  
  
“Meddyr nadothri,” she said, and the mixture tingled against his skin. It was not unpleasant, but made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “Arbethyr nadothri. Gwranydd drysin caridiga.” Reaching up, she pulled a strand of her hair loose, and tied it loosely around Ping’s wrist. The oil dried to a faint stain on his skin, then disappeared.  
  
Giselle drew a deep breath, squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, then opened them again and offered the silver once-coin to Ping. “Do the same,” she said. Her voice had gone hoarse, though it had been fine one moment before, and as he scooped up the red balm and drew a wobbly line on her wrist it rang clear again. “Meddyr nadothri, arbethyr nadothri. Arwn drysin caridiga.”  
  
Ping reached up as if to take one of his hairs, but Giselle shook her head and plucked a second of her own, passing the red-gold strand to him. With a nod and a tied tongue, he looped the hair around Giselle’s wrist and managed to form it into a simple knot, pulled tight against her skin. Again, the balm faded to a stain on her wrist.  
  
With a shiver, Giselle, drew back, rolling her wrist gently as if against some stiffness. “It is done,” she said softly. “All that I can, at least. I wish now that I had given some protection to Aurora, but it is likely that it would have been discovered...”  
  
Her throat felt raw, and when she swallowed it was with a sharp stab of pain that made her wince. Ignoring it, she licked her fingers and pinched out the wick of the lamp, though it barely made a change in the brightly-lit room.  
  
“Thank you, Giselle,” said Ping, and as rarely as he used her name it left her uncertain of whether to be afraid or comforted. He reached over to rest his hand lightly on her arm, his palm rough from the sword and warm against her cold skin. “I am sure that we will all be fine, and that we will find a settlement for this. Do not fear.”  
  
“I will try not to,” she replied, and could offer no more.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**  
  
Giselle was veiled and robed again by the time that she followed Ping into the dining hall of the Sultan and Princess. Food had not yet been bought to their chambers, but there had been only two places set – one for the Sultan, the other clearly meant only for Ping – and now she knelt behind her companion as he sat opposite the rulers of the land.  
  
The Sultan still wore his robes, or perhaps different ones made in just the same way, but this time the Princess was dressed in deep red, the colour of rubies – the colour of blood, Giselle’s mind added at a whisper – and less heavy with jewellery than she had been before. She sat with a cup of wine at her left hand, which she would occasionally raise beneath her translucent veil to sip at, and the same serving boy Aladdin behind her with a golden jug balanced on a platter.  
  
Ping was speaking the language of the Kingdom, fluid and easy, and Giselle could not keep up with the speed of his words as he spoke to the grim-faced Sultan. It seemed that Sultan Jafar never smiled; his expression barely seemed to change, and when Giselle looked closely she could see a reddish glint deep in his eyes. It reminded her of the magic she had seen him forming, and her hands clenched to fists to avoid reaching once more for the vial at her neck. As if there was anything which it could have done against such power.  
  
Time passed, her knees began to ache, and abruptly but with a sense of continuation she became aware of the Princess’s eyes fixed upon her. Giselle looked up from beneath her lashes, without raising her bowed head, to see Princess Jasmine rolling the stem of her goblet between her fingertips, her lips faintly curved in the fakest of smiles, her eyes less welcoming.  
  
Could she know what her husband had been doing in the depths of the Palace? Giselle would not say that the Princess was much older than she, perhaps just past her twentieth year. She knew that the Sultan kept a harem and had heard that he had once been the vizier to the last Sultan.  
  
She knew also that the last Sultan had died just weeks after his daughter’s wedding. The Princess was only sixteen, Ping had said, and there had been a touch of anger to the words.  
  
Heavy bracelets lay upon the Princess’s wrists, glinting in the sunlight. They would likely be hot to the touch, Giselle realised, and as heavy as chains.  
  
Her eyes met with the Princess’s for only a moment, then Ping’s voice rose in agitation and both looked round at the same time to turn towards him. Still in the tongue of the land, the Princess gently queried him, and there was a painful pause before Ping replied. Beneath the table, his hand slipped towards the top of his boot, where a dagger lay, then Giselle watched as his fingers slowly shifted back again.  
  
The words had a resignation about them. Ping spoke further, with a gesture to Giselle, and the Princess nodded with a dismissive wave of her hand.  
  
“Sadly, the Sultan and Princess will not be able to entertain our company this evening,” he said, glancing towards rather than over his shoulder. It was the same gesture that she had seen the guards use to Sadira, or the men in the marketplace to women following behind them. “They are needed elsewhere.”  
  
The hand, lying flat on his thigh.  
  
“They ask whether we would prefer to dine in our quarters this evening, or whether we would rather meet with some of the court of this land.”  
  
“Our quarters will be quite acceptable, sir,” said Giselle, and Ping gave an infinitesimal nod at the trigger word. Tonight they would not need Ping, with his languages and soldier camaraderie and leadership. Tonight they would need Mulan, with her wits and tricks and bravery in the face of what could seem terrible.  
  
“Would it be possible for us to meet again with the seer whom we bought to this land?” said Ping, rather suddenly. Giselle held her breath at the bold move, and saw the twitch of the Princess’s lips as she must have drawn them in just slightly. “I would wish to settle any fears which she has, in her own tongue.”  
  
“Impossible,” said the Princess; the Sultan did not respond, not so much as move. There was perhaps half a beat before she added: “Unfortunately. Her presence is required elsewhere tonight.”  
  
The image of Aurora wreathed in flames. A giant sand-cat, closing its great mouth upon her.  
  
Ping inclined his head. “My apologies, your Highness. I understand completely and thank you for the extension of your hospitality at such a time.”  
  
Giselle found her eyes drawn to the golden scarab that nestled between the Princess’s breasts, its pincers raised upwards, its belly glinting green in the sunlight. It did not match her other clothes.  
  
“It is no problem, my guest,” the Princess said, interrupting any thoughts that could have followed. “After all, you have given us a great gift. It is only right that we should give you something in return.”  
  
This time when Ping spoke again, it was in the tongue of the land, and Giselle closed her eyes for a moment to let them continue. It did not pass for long, then Ping said something that sounded as if he was excusing himself, helped Giselle to her feet – she mentally cursed one of her feet for going numb – before they left the room. He was frowning, not even attempting to hide it, and by the time that they returned to their halls Giselle could already guess that he would begin packing immediately.  
  
Ping did not disappoint her; it took them almost no time at all to pack, and then armour and swords were being produced once again. “The Sultan said that they would be leaving within a couple of hours, no more. He did not say where they were going, but if they are to be there and back before nightfall then it cannot be the greatest of distances.”  
  
“It may be that they do not intend to return before nightfall,” said Giselle pointedly, drawing up her sleeve to strap one of her knives in place there. She put one hand on her companion’s shoulder, then reached up and loosed the ribbon holding their hair in place. Mulan sighed, and returned with a softening of her shoulders.  
  
“You are right. The desert is not the best place for tracking, either.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” she replied. “I would feel the pull of such magic anywhere.”  
  
“Very well. Here, do you have a second set of robes? We will need to leave the Palace unnoticed.” Giselle handed them over, and Mulan wrestled them on, muttering beneath her breath from time to time as she sought to get them into the right place. Once her veil was in place, neither of them would be looked twice at, and they wrapped up what belongings they had outstanding into bundles. “Meet me at the southern gate,” Mulan added as she started towards the door. “They do not bother to guard it. You will be able to make your way through the passages?”  
  
She should have known that was to come; Giselle swallowed nervously, but nodded, and handed over her pack to Mulan as well with slightly shaking hands. She was very aware of the hair tied around her wrist as she watched Mulan leave, head bowed, not speaking, then turned and made her way back to the passages which she had seen once before.  
  
In the day, and with less magic being done, the air was less oppressive and the sand seemed less loud beneath her feet as she made her way through the narrow stone ways. At the same junction as before she took this time the left path, following it to a spiral staircase that went down a short way before levelling out to a corridor. A wooden lattice formed part of the wall on her left side, at eye-height, and she could not help but pause and glance through it, and the sheer fabric on the other side, to the room behind.  
  
A woman stood with her back to Giselle, long black hair reaching down beyond her waist, wearing only a pair of loose black pants that shimmered in the light. As Giselle watched, she reached up to wind her hair into a loose bun, exposing the golden skin of her back. It was marred and striped with silver scars, and Giselle found it impossible to suppress the gasp that came from her.  
  
The woman hesitated, then slowly began to turn. Before she could look all the way around, Giselle turned and fled, heart pounding in her chest and vial burning on her skin. She barely stopped until she found herself at the end of one of the passages, which mercifully opened out behind a wall-hanging into a deserted corridor. The cast of the shadows from the windows gave her enough direction, and she made her way to the same doors that she and Sadira had used earlier, the guards glancing at her momentarily but not sparing her too much interest. She let her fingers brush against the hilt of her knife, but did not need it, and as the south gate came into view she saw a similarly black-clad figure, this time with three horses standing beside her.  
  
Samson was shifting uneasily, eyes wide and head moving in flighty flicks. Giselle made a hushing sound and stroked his nose gently, but it did not still him altogether, nor did a hand run through his mane. “Come on,” said Mulan softly, “we should get out of here. There is only one set of gates to the city, and we should find somewhere within sight of it to wait.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**  
  
The blue of the sky slowly deepened, becoming almost violet as, to the west, the sun bloodied the sky with its death. Mulan knew how quickly the heat would leave the land, as if they had descended into a different world, and she and Giselle both wrapped their cloaks more tightly around themselves as they passed out of the gates, shortly before the curfew was called and the city wrapped itself up into armoured isolation.  
  
They watched from just beyond the crest of one of the great sand dunes, in short glances such that their silhouettes would not too rudely break the skyline. Some of Mulan’s worried attention, however, remained on Giselle, whose distracted shifts and toying with the knife at her wrist could not be anything but troubling. Mulan thought of saying something, but could not conjure up the right words, and allowed silence to remain instead.  
  
The delay, however, was not comfortable for her. She was used by now to having the others to distract her, and even as they waited and watched the form of the gates she found it hard to hold back the ghosts that followed at her shoulder. Once it had been comforting, the whispers of her family a background wind that reminded her that she was never alone, but since the war there had been more voices, louder voices, many of them angry or scared or in pain. Even the voice of the Emperor could not calm them all.  
  
He would always be her Emperor, at least. She had not stayed in Tiānxià long enough to see the son who next took the throne, had already been waiting beyond the borders when first Shang came to her again. He had done as he had promised, he said, and delivered the sword of Shan Yu to her family; even if Tiānxià might never know of her glory, then at least her kin would. It had been then that she had first kissed him, had first slipped from Ping back into Mulan and found, for once, that it fit.  
  
It had not changed, though, that he was a General now and beholden to the people to remain within the borders for much of the time. Even when he could travel, his retinue meant that she could hardly come near him, and they would struggle to find time that could be shared.  
  
She remembered what it was like to travel alone. Mostly under the name of Ping, and mostly through small villages where he would not be too noticeable. It had been the gradual movements west which had eventually bought him into the path of danger: a town which was finding its children spirited away at night, by a man described as having a laugh like a child. None of the village understood how he could have flown; Ping would not have believed that the magic of a captured fairy could be so used, unless he had seen it with his own eyes. He killed the man, bought back those children which lived still, then turned his back on the town before he could become too attached to it,  
  
Aurora had found Mulan, and not the other way around, in the middle of the night and the middle of a forest. Sometimes even Mulan wondered why she had trusted the girl, for Aurora was nothing more than a girl even now to her, but she had not been able to do anything else. Giselle had come later, from a castle owned by a sorcerer both powerful and terrible. It had been battle with that sorcerer which had left the remnants of Mushu’s power seared on Mulan’s skin, his magic the only thing that would draw the newly cursed sword at her side. Only later would they realise the full costs of what Mushu had done, and all to allow the rescuing of Giselle and of the young boy Michael whom they also found cowering in the castle’s ruins. The boy had a family, it transpired, and no more wish to use his burgeoning magic; Giselle was the opposite.  
  
That had been many months ago. Mulan glanced across at Giselle once again, thinking of how much had passed, when the gates to the city opened and both women wheeled to watch. Four figures exited, on horseback, without lanterns or heraldry; by squinting, Mulan was just about able to make out the figure of the Sultan on the foremost of the horses, what moonlight there was highlighting his features. Beside him rode a slighter figure, hooded, but a glint of gold from beneath the robes suggested the Princess.  
  
The two figures behind were less clear: both were cloaked and hooded in black, and like the Sultan and Princess rode on black horses. “Do you think they are guards?” said Mulan softly, but Giselle shook her head.  
  
“One, perhaps. But the other is Aurora. Look, she rides side-saddle, and her feet are bare.”  
  
Mulan cursed herself for not seeing it before, though in the night shadows it was difficult to make out much more than a silhouette. The winking pale of Aurora’s feet, though, she should have noticed. “They must have something planned for her, then. Come on, they’re turning south.”  
  
They followed at a distance, Giselle indicating with gestures of her hand which direction they were to go; Mulan trusted her beyond words. The sword felt reassuringly heavy at her side, though the hair tied around her wrist seemed to itch and she had to clench her fist against it. Giselle had grown more and more visibly troubled as they had waited, eventually refusing to even speak, and though Mulan had allowed her to lapse into silence it was uncomfortable.  
  
As night fell, the air grew chill around them, the sky wide and cloudless over the desert land. The moon hung, gibbous and heavy, in the sky, and though the sand looked half-silver at their feet it was still not difficult to follow the path which was being taken. Even Samson, despite the occasional nervous tossing of his head, allowed himself to be led on his long bridle across the sand.  
  
Mulan sipped water from her canteen, feeling the dryness of the air even as it cooled. There was a sensation in the air almost like that produced by rubbing amber with a cloth; the hairs on the back of her arms stood on end beneath the sleeves of her cheongsam, and she felt prickling along the back of her neck.  
  
At a raised hand from Giselle, they slowed, then stopped just shy of the crest of one of the great sand dunes. “We should leave the horses here,” she said quietly, moving to dismount.  
  
Again, Mulan did not question her as she gently slid to the ground, shoes biting into the sand. An outcrop of rocks managed to shelter a stunted tree; Mulan seriously doubted its ability to hold back the horses, but they tied up the bridles nevertheless. She stroked Khan’s nose and received an unimpressed snort from him, which drew a smile back to her face.  
  
“I will be back, my friend,” she said quietly. “Wait here for us.”  
  
Khan gave a flick of his head that was almost a nod, and she stroked one of his ears affectionately before putting her hand to the sword at her side and following Giselle to the crest of the dune. They crouched just shy of it to look over, watching as the figures below dismounted from their camels – or, in Aurora’s case, were all but dragged down by the hooded guard. She crumpled to the ground, only to be dragged back to her feet again, stumbling on the shifting sands.  
  
“Come on,” said Mulan, plucking at Giselle’s sleeve. Still hunched over, they followed the curve of the dune, footsteps silent, until they could see clearly the backs of the Sultan and Princess. Mulan’s brow creased to a frown that both were there when Giselle had spoken of the Sultan’s dark magic, unless the Princess had also been caught up in it. Rather than speak further, she pointed down the slope; they moved down in sliding motions, letting the momentum of the sand carry them in hushing sweeps.  
  
Faintly visible by the light of the moon, the Princess turned to the Sultan, who reached out to take something from her chest. Mulan squinted, but could not see, until a burst of gold light and sparks blossomed from the Sultan’s hand.  
  
Beside her, she heard Giselle draw in a breath, but when the glare had gone from her eyes she watched the golden speck flit around them in a circle, then fly forward just a short distance before splitting into two and burying itself into the sand.  
  
She tightened her hand on the hilt of her sword. Something felt _wrong_ , so very wrong, and as the sand rumbled the feeling only intensified. What had been a hummock grew, rose, and Mulan’s eyes widened in shock as it spread out into the face of a giant cat, maw gaping open and glowing from within as if a fire burned there, its sand-teeth glittering.  
  
Aurora screamed. The note was piercing, terrified, and Mulan had to grab Giselle’s arm to stop the younger woman from revealing them both already. Turning, she attempted to run, but the figure grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back, leaving her to fall squirming and silent. His hood slipped back, revealing the servant boy Aladdin who had seemed to never leave the side of the rulers of Agrabah. A moment passed, then Aurora’s eyes began to glow a soft green, and when she was released she stood patiently before them.  
  
“Imši,” said the Princess, her voice carrying across the sand.  
  
Aurora turned, raising her eyes to look into the great mouth before her, then began to move as slowly as a sleepwalker. One hand rose as she neared the lip of the cave, its red light searing over her.  
  
 **“Who disturbs my slumber?”** Aurora stopped, hand drawing back for a moment, as the cave _moved_ \- spoke, in words like rushing winds and drowning waves.  
  
“Speak your name,” said the Princess.  
  
“I am the Princess Aurora of the Kingdom of the Sun, also knock as Briar Rose,” Aurora replied, her voice distant and body now unmoving. “I come before you seer and witch.”  
  
 **“Know this,”** breathed the cave. **“Only one may enter here, one whose worth lies far within. The Diamond in the Rough.”**  
  
The winds from its voice fell still, its jaw settling, and Aurora began to move once again. Delicately, her hand raised the hem of her tattered skirt as she began to walk up the slope towards its mouth, now a figure in nothing more than red and gold as she drew level with its fangs. The cave drew in a deep breath, then let it out, smelling of gold and spices.  
  
“No!”  
  
Perhaps Mulan should have known that it would come. Before she could react, Giselle was on her feet, running as if all the shadows of the world were after her across the sand. The Sultan and Princess turned in shock at her cry; even Aurora, now just within the mouth of the beast and barely more than a shadow, hesitated and half-turned. Mulan got to her feet as well, drawing her sword in readiness; the ground shook beneath her and then _things_ lunged forth, shambling grey figures odious with death and clutching rusted weapons in their hands.  
  
“Giselle!” Mulan shouted, but she could barely even see as the woman ran straight to Aurora, hair streaming like a banner of blood, and the sand-creature was roaring a terrible warning as its mouth began to close.  
  
Giselle threw Aurora clear of the fire; her body fell limply to the ground, torn dress like a splash of water on the sand. With the sound of the sand still tearing in the air, the features of it collapsed, and in its place remained only a great hump of sand, still and bare. Giselle was nowhere to be seen.  
  
“You-“ Mulan began, feeling threats and dark promises bubble in her throat, but before she could say a word one of the creatures that had risen from the sand raised its sword against her with a moan. Her blade was in her hand as fast as the breath in her lungs, as she raised it to parry. Steel rang on steel, then in a whirl she blocked the blow of the second raising its sword towards her.  
  
The smell of them surrounded her, rich and fetid, and she gagged even though she was breathing through her mouth as she spun and whirled between the blades that surrounded her. The creatures were slow, lurching, but lunged towards her with their blades extended towards her. By numbers alone they surrounded her, and slow as they were they pressed her back, one by one. She sliced down through the arm of one, buried her neck in the blade of a second and had to pull it out with a fierce tug, and kicked a third in the stomach hard enough to send it flopping to the ground. That one, though, she regretted as putrid-smelling sludge splattered over her leg.  
  
One by one they fell to the flashes and sweeps of her blade, but no fight is without retaliation; she felt a cold flash along her left forearm, gritted her teeth against the expected pain, and was shocked when she saw slashed cloth but unblemished skin out of the corner of her eye. Protection, she supposed, and buried her sword so deeply in the side of the creature’s head that she had to plant her foot on its body to pull it out.  
  
There were other moments when the blade whistled close to her skin, but somehow none marked her flesh, even the slash across her cheek which she was quite sure should have knocked her to the ground. Finally she withdrew her dripping blade from the last of the twitching bodies and whirled to face the Sultan and Princess, breathing hard and with her hair stuck to her brow with sweat.  
  
“ _You_ ,” she said, raising the blade towards the Sultan. He watched her impassively, as did the servant-boy Aladdin; there was an unreadable glitter in the Princess’s eyes. “This will end now, do you hear me?”  
  
“Why, ‘Ping’,” said the Princess, her voice like silk, and Mulan was so astonished that she barely realised she was still talking in her tongue, and not that of Agrabah. “Why ever would you think that? Unless, of course, you mean that your foolish games are over. Do you think that Mamluks are the worst thing at my command?”  
  
She raised her hand, almost lazily, palm filled with a dull red glow. Searing pain, shaped like heat but not quite the same, branded itself down Mulan’s front. The scream that attempted to force itself from her lips, she restrained, but Mulan could not remain standing and slumped to her knees, still gripping her sword so hard that her knuckles turned white, as the pain convulsed through each inch of her.  
  
“Nnnggg…”  
  
Sound crept out from between clenched teeth, but by breathing hard she held back the worst of it. Then the pain disappeared, her eyes flew open, and relief flowed like cold water over her skin. She gasped.  
  
The Princess had walked closer to her, her gaze cold and light glowing from her hands, the bracelets on her wrists, the necklace at her throat. Still Mulan could not understand, how this girl younger than them could hold such horror in the palm of her slender hands, and looked up in wordless uncertainty.  
  
“Perhaps you should die upon your own sword,” said Princess Jasmine, as if thinking aloud. “There are not too many other weapons nearby, after all…”  
  
She clenched her fist, the light within it seeming to flash brighter, and a golden glow lit around the Dragon Sword. Its hilt grew hot beneath Mulan’s hand, almost unbearably so, but she clung to it with both hands even as it began to burn. The sword wavered in her hold, attempting to turn its point towards her, and as the Princess began to slowly straighten her fingers the pressure became still stronger, the force greater, leaving Mulan’s wrists shaking and her body bending backwards away from the edge.  
  
The ground trembled beneath them, then there was a mighty roar like the sound of a large cat turned into a beast. The sand beneath them shifted, ruptured, throwing them all aside like rag dolls as a flash of blue-white light came from the centre of it, obliterating Mulan’s night vision. As the clouds on her eyes cleared, she looked back, struggling to her feet and raising her sword once again.  
  
“Princess Jasmine.”  
  
Giselle’s voice was pure and clear, but carried with it some strange otherworldly touch. Mulan blinked, but the image did not fade; Giselle stood upon a carpet that floated in the air, its body perfectly flat and golden tassels waving lazily at its corners. At her shoulder – stranger still – stood what looked at first like a man, but huge, his skin blue and body made of smoke, arms folded across his chest.  
  
Jasmine looked up from where she knelt in the sand, her cloak torn away to reveal her red clothes beneath and her hair wild around her face. She lunged upright. “My genie!”  
  
“No,” said Giselle; she had blood dripping from her cheek and smeared on her sleeves, making her grey cloak look black in the moonlight. A small shift of her body, barely visible, and then the carpet drifted down towards the desert floor, without disturbing the sand over which it hovered. It rippled, forming into steps, and Giselle stepped down only for her hand to go to her side in pain and for her feet to stumble beneath her, dropping her to the floor. A shining golden lamp fell from her broad sleeve into the sand.  
  
Triumph flashing in her eyes, the Princess almost ran across the sand, raising one glowing palm again. “Abbash rus-“  
  
Her words came no further. Aurora began to sing.  
  
“In sleep shall I find you, my magic, my sister…”  
  
She was still sprawled in the sand, her tattered dress seemingly even worse than it had been before, her eyes closed and brow puckered. As Mulan watched, she opened her eyes slowly, and tried to push herself up to a seated position.  
  
“Magic, you have been awake too long,  
Hear now my words; hear now this song.  
Magic, you have here done too much,  
How can you let the world turn such…”  
  
Her voice, like crystal, shivered on the air as she drew herself slowly to her feet. She held out her hands, palm up, towards the Princess, who began to shake violently and wrap her arms around herself.  
  
“No!” Jasmine snarled, her hands flaring brighter. Light spilled from her eyes where she gazed upon the desert floor.  
  
“Rest magic, sleep magic,  
To slumber now return;  
Still magic, sleep magic;  
No longer the world burn.”  
  
Screaming cut through the air, primal, with the terrible sound of a wrecked throat forming it. Mulan put her hands to her ears, but it could not block out the sound, and with a wrench she forced herself to look up. The Princess was the one screaming, weeping, tears rolling down her face and blood rolling down her arms as she turned back to the others. The figure of the Sultan dissolved into dust, wisping away on the desert night wind; Aladdin fell to the ground, his bronze skin turning grey-green, his hair falling away in clumps, his clothes rotting on his body. He looked like nothing more than the scattered dead things that Mulan had cut down to face the Princess and Sultan, and bile rose in her throat as the Princess ran to his form and threw her arms around him.  
  
“No!” The Princess screamed, the sound drawn out until it almost reached wordlessness. She cradled the rotting body to her chest, ignorant even as Aurora walked closer to her. Mulan grabbed her sword and rose as well; Giselle had also already returned to her feet, albeit somewhat unsteadily, and with the carpet and the blue figure in her wake finished the triangle as they closed down onto the princess. “Aladdin…”  
  
She had stopped screaming now, and started sobbing instead, stroking what hair remained on the body’s head, cradling its cheek even where teeth gleamed white through decayed flesh. The bracelets and necklace that she wore were turning to green, to black, starting to wither away even before their eyes as Aurora reached her first, and laid one hand on her shoulder.  
  
The Princess turned her head sharply, hair whipping, her lip curling into a snarl even as she clutched what had been ‘Aladdin’ closer. Aurora’s hand moved, fingertips pressing to Jasmine’s forehead, and she spoke simply.  
  
“Sleep, sister.”  
  
It was something like magic, but did not stir the air, and Aurora had claimed that it was no such thing. The Princess’s eyes drooped closed, and she slumped sideways into the sand, face finally becoming smooth. Mulan reached in and dragged out the body from her vicinity, using both of its arms once the first one felt like it might just rip away.  
  
“Genie?” said Giselle softly, turning to the blue figure beside her. He bowed deeply, placing his hands with their gold cuffs together; as he straightened Mulan thought that she saw a sort of ancient weariness in his eyes. “You were saying before about wishes.”  
  
“Wishes? Oh, wishes,” he said, and his voice was brighter and richer than Mulan had expected. “Yes, well, I’m guessing you guys aren’t from around here, so I’ll give you the run-down. I’m a genie.” He pointed two big blue thumbs towards his broad chest. “And you, ma’am, rubbed the lamp, which means you get three wishes. Not four, certainly not five – three.”  
  
“And what can I do with these wishes?” said Giselle. She reached up to rub absent-mindedly at her cheek, then winced as fabric touched blood. Mulan remembered the sword that she was sure had slashed her skin, and looked down at the inside of her right wrist. The red stain had almost faded away now.  
  
“Honey, what _can’t_ you do?” He spun on the spot, stretching out his arms, and it seemed like rings and small planets spun around him. The broad smile only lasted for a moment, though, as he sunk back down to their level and drew a pair of eyeglasses from nowhere to perch upon his nose. “Well, hyperbole, but we’ve all got to get our kicks somewhere. The plus side,” he held up one hand, a glowing silver symbol floating above it, “phenomenal cosmic power, all wrapped up in yours truly, yours to command. _But_ ,” he said, voice becoming more serious. “There are rules. All magic has rules, and I’m sure that you know that.”  
  
She only nodded, with a faint wry smile on her pale face.  
  
“One, no wishing for more wishes. Paradoxes are not our friend.” Being him, a strange ghostly figure of a snake eating itself, wound like an infinity symbol, exploded into dim white sparks. “Two, you can’t make anybody fall in love with you, no playing with hearts. And three,” he glanced down at the scattered body parts that littered the desert floor. “No bringing people back from the dead.”  
  
“Those are good rules,” said Giselle. “But why do you need to give me those wishes anyway? Do you want to?”  
  
“Well, granting wishes is a good way to pass the time,” he admitted, “even if it gets a bit tedious sometimes. But… that’s how genies _work_ , you see. We get tied to the object, and then get released at the touch of our master. We only become free if someone wishes for us to be so, and who’s going to do that?”  
  
Self-deprecation dripped off his words, and Mulan could see why: a once-in-a-lifetime chance, time to change the world, and it’s limited to three wishes? She wasn’t sure that she would want to give one of those up, either.  
  
Giselle did not seem to react, merely gave another brief nod. “All right. Let me think for a moment.”  
  
The genie nodded and drifted back a few paces, folding his hands in front of him and appearing to dim slightly. Giselle glanced towards Aurora, who was now kneeling beside the sleeping Princess, then turned to Mulan. “This isn’t done yet,” she said softly. “We need to fix this.”  
  
Fixing things wasn’t normally part of their bargain. They came in and removed whatever was harming, whatever was _wrong_ , and things tended to turn right by themselves instead. The rightful Prince or Princess would come forward for the throne, the land would turn beautiful again, evil things would wither and die without whatever was ruling them. They didn’t need to fix.  
  
But Mulan thought of the Land of the Black Sands that they had heard of, the young Prince who had relieved its former owner – rotten to the core, by all accounts – of possession, and who had an interest in Agrabah. The Seven Deserts were carefully balanced powers, Shang had told her, and a lull in one Kingdom could cause ripples that would create all-out war.  
  
“She was the only heir to the throne,” said Mulan quietly. “She still is.”  
  
Giselle nodded. “Genie,” she said, and he perked up and became more solid at her words. “For my first wish, I wish for you to heal the Princess Jasmine in body and mind such that she might be a fit ruler for Agrabah.”  
  
The Genie raised his hands, light glowing between them, then let it drift out in a silent explosion of opalescent butterflies that settled all over the Princess’s sleeping form and surrounded her in a soft glow. When they faded, she seemed to be sleeping more deeply, and the blood on her hands and the faint lines around the corners of her eyes were gone. Aurora looked up for a moment, caught Giselle’s eye, and nodded.  
  
Giselle’s hand came up to rest in the centre of her chest, as if remembering something. “Genie, for my second wish, I wish for all traces and effects of dark magic to be removed from the Kingdom of Agrabah, that all who are slaves to it might be free.”  
  
“The line between light and dark magic is a little fuzzy,” said the Genie.  
  
She turned to him with a smile, and with brilliant blue-green eyes that showed starkly against her skin. “I trust your judgement.”  
  
For a moment, Mulan thought that the Genie might have been on the verge of smiling in return. He raised his hands, whispered something that turned into the wind, and a great gust swept through, almost knocking her to her knees once again. When it passed, the air seemed to smell somehow sweeter, and she felt as she did when she removed the bandages that bound her breasts.  
  
“And for your third wish?” said the Genie. He drifted a little closer to Giselle, moving round in front of her and leaving a shimmer like heat haze in his wake. “You’ve been very selfless. Perhaps…” he was suddenly close to her, faces inches apart, and Mulan had to bite back the urge to raise her sword again. He meant no harm, she was quite sure, and there was nothing that she could have done even if she did. For a moment, woman and genie looked into each other’s eyes. “I could send you home,” he said gently. “Back to where you came from. You don’t feel like a part of this world.”  
  
“This is my home now,” Giselle replied.  
  
“I could make your magic the strongest in the world,” he said.  
  
“It is strong enough for me,” she replied.  
  
He tilted his head just slightly. “I could take away the pain from the dreams that haunt one close to you,” he said, so quietly that Mulan barely heard it. She looked round, but Aurora did not look up from where she knelt.  
  
At this, Giselle fell silent, and then turned her head sharply away. “You didn’t say that I needed to make the wishes straight away,” she said quietly. “I need some time to think.”  
  
“As you wish… so to speak,” said the Genie, and in a rush of smoke he disappeared back into the lamp at her feet once again. Giselle bent and scooped up the lamp, this time tying a loop of her belt through it and letting it hang at her hip. She looked round to the rug, then reached across to stroke it fondly, as one would a pet, before turning back to Mulan once again.  
  
“We should get back to the Palace. The Princess will awake before long; someone will need to speak to her.”  
  
There were shadows underneath Giselle’s eyes. Mulan could feel pain in her muscles, where she had wielded a sword and fought, but she knew this was different. “You cast a spell that took my wounds and put them on you,” she said. The only reply was a shrug; it could not very well have been argued. “Why?”  
  
Giselle just smiled, and Mulan supposed that she didn’t need to ask, not after the number of times that she had taken up her blade to protect them. She sheathed her sword, then stepped forwards and embraced the redhead. Giselle gave one shuddering sob, but then fell silent again and squeezed Mulan tightly, her skin feeling unnaturally warm even now. Mulan suspected, though she did not say, that she could smell burning hair.  
  
“Let’s go back to the Palace,” said Mulan, and they stepped apart once again. She looked round to Aurora, who was still sitting beside the sleeping – though perhaps unconscious would be a better word – Princess. Though perhaps they should be saying Sultana as well. She would worry about that more once they were safely back within the walls of Agrabah. “Giselle, is that… carpet safe?”  
  
“I think so,” said Giselle. “It seems… friendly. And it carried me out, and wasn’t afraid of my magic. So I’m guessing so.”  
  
“All right, then,” said Mulan. “Aurora, take the Princess and the carpet, and head back to Agrabah. Meet us before the gates – I can’t imagine that anyone else is going to be there at this hour. We’ll bring back Samson.”  
  
Without any prompting, the carpet flew over to Aurora and Jasmine; it moved more sinuously when it did not have to form a board for someone to stand upon. It paused above the Princess, as if thinking – Mulan told herself that this was putting far too much motive onto the movements of a _carpet_ – then wriggled underneath her and scooped her gently out of the sand. It then held itself still for Aurora to climb on as well, proving more than spacious enough for the two and bending a little to cradle them somewhat more securely.  
  
Mulan waited long enough to see that they were safely airborne before turning back to Giselle and nodding up the ridge to where the horses lay. She had a feeling it was going to feel a lot taller to climb up this time. “Come on,” she said quietly. “Let’s finish this.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**  
  
The sky was still velvety-dark by the time that they made it back to Agrabah. Giselle could barely keep the reins wrapped around her hands as she rode, whilst Mulan steered both Khan and Samson over the shifting desert sands. When they reached the gates, Aurora stepped down to walk beside them, but they left the still-sleeping Princess on the carpet as they crept round and through the secret tunnels back into the Palace once again.  
  
Mulan was muttering something about the guards having grown lazy, perhaps with a lack of fear that came with having powerful rulers.  
  
“I’ll take the horses,” said Mulan, as Giselle almost stumbled to the ground.  
  
“Thank you,” Giselle replied.  
  
She felt… faint, wavering, as if she was looking at herself through a heat haze instead of the rest of the world. Her feet seemed to catch on each other and she almost stumbled over her own feet, only to have cool hands wrap around her wrists and hold her upright with barely a touch. She looked up to find Aurora looking into her eyes, a very faint hint of concern written on her face; a tired smile found her lips as Aurora’s cool touch brushed over the sore band around her right wrist.  
  
“You saved us all,” Aurora breathed, and Giselle’s hands started to shake all over again. Giselle put her hand on Aurora’s shoulder, the younger girl still the tallest of them, and looked round to see Mulan reappearing, now with Jasmine in her arms as if she weighed nothing at all. The carpet was following obediently at her ankles, thought it looked – as much as a carpet could – cautious.  
  
“It’s what we do,” Giselle heard herself say.  
  
Mulan walked past them both. “I will take the Princess to the throne room. I think she’s starting to wake up. If not… at least the guards should find her there. Giselle, take Aurora to our room. Get some rest. I will be back later.”  
  
She nodded in reply, but it felt as if it was Aurora who was keeping her upright as they made their way back. The corridors were dim and quiet in the darkness, though the Palace felt as if some great weight had been removed from it, the air clearer and the shadows less dense. Giselle expected there to be guards outside the room still, but they had gone; she barely had the energy to frown as she helped Aurora to pull the doors open and slip inside.  
  
“Sit down,” said Aurora quietly. She neither wished nor was able to argue as she sat down on the side of the bed, head hanging over her lap. Through loose strings of hair she saw Aurora cross to one of the chairs, draped with some finely-embroidered blanket, and remove the cushions from it. She peeled her dress from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, sand scattering from it, and pulled the blanket around her in some sort of wrapped dress, tied over her shoulder. Giselle did not care to ask where she had learnt that skill, though she could not help but think that Aurora could make anything she might find look like a gown.  
  
Aurora left the room for a moment; Giselle’s eyes drooped almost closed, but she forced herself to sit up again, wrapping her arms across her chest, as Aurora reappeared with a bowl of water and a cloth in her hand. She knelt in front of Giselle and reached out to take her left arm gently.  
  
“The water’s cool,” said Aurora. “But I suppose that might be better.”  
  
“You don’t have to do this,” said Giselle. “I can dress my own wounds.”  
  
Aurora didn’t say a word, but pushed back Giselle’s sleeve and started to wash away the sand that clung to her skin and the wound. Once or twice, Giselle drew in her breath sharply, but did not say a word even as the water in the bowl was stained pink.  
  
“It’s quite shallow,” Giselle said. “It will heal by itself.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Aurora asked. Giselle nodded, and she accepted the words, taking the right arm in turn. Beneath the water, the dark smear on the inside of Giselle’s wrist washed away as well. “Let me see the others,” she said, pointing to the glossy darkness that marked Giselle’s side. Muscles going stiff, Giselle struggled to remove her abaya to reveal the white shirt and loose pants that she wore beneath, even more so when she had to remove the shirt to expose the nasty slash in her left side.  
  
Aurora winced slightly at the sight of it, then motioned for Giselle to lie down and sat on the bed beside her. Touches so gentle that they could barely be felt traced over her skin, around the wound first and then gradually closer, drawing a faint hiss of pain.  
  
“You took these wounds for Mulan, didn’t you?” said Aurora. Perhaps it was meant to be a distraction as she began to work on the wound itself.  
  
“Yes. I said that I would do what I could to protect her.”  
  
“I doubt that she was expecting this.” She smiled faintly, perhaps sadly, and tried to toss her hair out of the way but did not quite succeed. Giselle reached up and pushed a stray lock back. “You put yourself at great risk for us.”  
  
“I would do anything for you.”  
  
The words came out before she thought about them, and somehow the inflection was not quite right. Aurora paused, hands stilling, and reached up to meet Giselle’s eyes just for a moment. Her eyes were violet, with flecks of green deep within them which sometimes glowed a little too brightly and drew something away from her face, and despite the shadows beneath them there was warmth there still.  
  
“We have made vows to do this together,” said Giselle after a moment’s pause, and Aurora nodded before turning back to the water once again. Gritting her teeth, Giselle struggled up onto her elbows, then to seated, and before Aurora could turn back took gently hold of her hand. “Stop. Please.”  
  
Aurora’s hand was shaking slightly, though Giselle could not tell whether it was cool or cold skin that she felt beneath her fingers. She still felt as if the fire of that desert cave rolled beneath her bones.  
  
“I dreamt of what was there,” said Aurora finally, barely above her breath. Her eyes fluttered, and almost closed. “Fire. I remember teeth closing around me and the stars falling from the sky. I remember-“  
  
“It did not happen,” she replied fiercely, cupping Aurora’s jaw with both hands. Aurora looked up, tears in her eyes. Giselle’s voice softened a little as one thumb traced across Aurora’s cheek. “It did not happen; you do not remember it. You dreamt it, that is all. Not every dream must come true.”  
  
“So many have,” Aurora whispered brokenly. “Not all, but so many… true or almost true, balancing like a drop of water almost falling. So many times, I saw you almost die…”  
  
She tried to turn her head away, but Giselle kept her hands in place and stilled the movement. “I’m here. I’m alive. We’re all alive.”  
  
There was another pause, punctuated only by Giselle’s calm breaths and Aurora’s more erratic ones. Then Aurora reached up and gently dabbed at the dried blood on Giselle’s cheek with the damp cloth in her hand. Weak, relieved laughter broke from both of their lips, and they leant their foreheads together for a moment, then as their hands slid away Giselle leant closer. Her lips brushed against the corner of Aurora’s mouth as the younger woman turned her face away.  
  
Giselle licked her lips, but could not speak. Aurora shook her head just slightly, the movement muted by the contact of their foreheads.  
  
“My chance has come and gone.”  
  
“Aurora…”  
  
“The spell was broken. I have had my True Love’s Kiss.”  
  
Barely daring to breathe, Giselle reached up and pushed a curl off Aurora’s brow. “Why should love be jealous? Why possess?” she breathed. “Where is it written that love can come only once?”  
  
Giselle felt fingertips brush against her parted lips. Aurora’s touch was cool, her fingers slim, as ethereal as ever she was; it did not tremble the way that might have been expected. Then the fingers drew away again, and Aurora’s gaze finally drew upwards once again.  
  
“All love can be true,” Giselle said, because it felt as if what she had said had not been enough, but then she realised that the words themselves were the problem, and instead drew across the short distance between them for a kiss.  
  
It was only a brush of lips to lips, barely more than a touch, dry and soft and lasting only for a couple of seconds. But Giselle felt her breath stolen, a faint beautiful twist in the centre of her chest as they hesitated, so close that she could not open her eyes because her vision would blur, and then Aurora kissed her in return and the circle closed around them. The world fell away before the kiss, and then Aurora broke away with a shuddering gasp and bit her lip.  
  
Giselle stroked her cheek cautiously, not daring to say anything. For a terrible moment she thought that Aurora was about to leave, but then one more time their lips met and there, just there, was a moment of perfection wrapped beneath all of the layers of horror they had faced.  
  
How long they remained there she could not be sure, in nothing more than tentative exploration, until finally Aurora leant their foreheads together and twined her fingers with Giselle’s, still cold but with a little more warmth than there had once been in them. “Thank you,” she breathed, and Giselle was not sure whether she had the words for why but suspected that she understood in any case.  
  
“You owe me nothing,” Giselle said for a response, and Aurora almost nodded, hair swaying around them. “Your being is wondrous enough.”  
  
Perhaps the words were a little much; colour, alien and harsh, rose in Aurora’s cheeks, and she drew away slightly with a turn of her head to the side.  
  
“I meant-“  
  
“Please, do not pin hopes on me,” said Aurora, voice quiet but firm now. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, making more visible the profile of her features, her returning composure. “Too many have lost things in doing so.”  
  
Giselle reached out and took the other hand, wrapping both of hers tightly around as if to hold Aurora still, to tie her to her seat. “Then let me be thankful for what is here and now, and not worry what may yet come to pass.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**  
  
The carpet, perhaps, she could handle. Aurora and Giselle she had sent away to tend to their wounds – Giselle’s physical, but no doubt both of them carrying other burdens, fears of what had happened. With Giselle went the golden lamp that she had clutched to her chest, and the spectral blue creature which had pooled from it was no longer a concern. The Princess had not yet awoken, and the guards here were so trusting and afraid together of their rulers that they were not abroad in the halls this deep in the night. It was quiet, only Mulan’s footsteps to break the peace in the air, only her form to break the cool planar shadows of the hallways as she passed through them.  
  
Perhaps only the echo of peace was enough.  
  
Originally she had thought to take the Princess to the Royal Chambers, but if there were guards in any place they would be there, and Mulan doubted that their fear would extend far enough to stop them from drawing weapons against her. Instead she made her way cautiously to the Throne Room, finding one door ajar enough to push open and slip through, and the room itself empty.  
  
There was one lamp by the doorway; she used it to light some of the others around the room, casting light gradually across the floor and walls as the Princess lay in the carpet’s gentle hold. She did not pretend to understand what it was, how it was capable of flight or intelligence as good as or better than any animal Mulan had ever met, but she did not fear it. It seemed benevolent enough.  
  
As she finished lighting the torches, she heard the Princess murmur, and the carpet fluttered slightly as if to catch her attention. One hand on the hilt of her sword, Mulan crossed the floor again and waited, silent and patient, until the Princess’s eyes fluttered and she raised one hand. It rose a few inches only, then with a sigh she let it fall, brow creasing as if in slight pain. Still, Mulan said nothing.  
  
Finally, the Princess’s hand clenched into a fist, and with a forcing of her will that was almost tangible in the air she pushed herself up to a seated position, eyes opening but not focussing for a moment. Mulan almost thought that she might call for the guards, but then their eyes met and a moment passed between them.  
  
“I remember everything,” said the Princess finally. She raised one hand to her chest, where the golden scarab had sat, and when she clenched it again it left faint marks of her nails on her skin. Anger and shame burned in her eyes and on her cheeks as she frowned upon herself. “I remember _everything_.”  
  
“Everything that has been is past,” Mulan replied. They spoke now in the tongue of the land, and at that without embellishments of rank or power. “Nothing that is to come has yet been decided.”  
  
The Princess bowed her head. She looked in some ways younger now, without the jewellery gilding her looks or the look of haughty power in her eyes. The hard lines of her face seemed to have softened, the cast bronze replaced with warm flesh and soft skin. Yet at the same time there was a patience of age about her, her shoulders squared to take the weight of what had been.  
  
“You will not kill me for what I have done?”  
  
For a moment, Mulan did not reply, and the Princess turned her gaze upwards once again. There was no fear there, though not quite resignation. “No,” said Mulan finally. “What is done has been fixed, and killing you is neither just nor necessary.”  
  
As if to illustrate, she removed the hand from the hilt of her sword, clasping both hands behind her again. Touches of soldier-hood that she never could shake off, and this land felt more like home than the woods with which Giselle and Aurora both seemed so familiar.  
  
“You were sixteen years old when you were wed. I doubt you were a sorceress then.”  
  
“That was six years ago. I doubt I am the only one whose world has changed.”  
  
To that, she did not rise, nor reply. “How deep did the enchantments run?”  
  
“Throughout the Palace, little more.” The Princess shook her head. “With him within my power, I was content enough… usually. I had no desire to hurt my people, not when the poor suffer enough already.”  
  
Mulan thought of Sadira, the tale Giselle had told of the woman with her blood worn like jewels. “What of other magic-users? Did you not shackle them?”  
  
“I did not want to be thrown down… no, that is not true. I did not care if I was thrown down or not; what I feared was losing my power over my-” she shuddered “-husband. At least, it started there. Over time I became more and more fearful that I was being conspired against. The guards believed still that Jafar ruled, and would not accept orders that they did not believe had come from him.”  
  
“You became cruel.”  
  
It was not a question, not a threat. She could see in the Princess’s eyes that it did not have to be after what they had seen that night, after the rumours of a feud with the Land of the Black Sands and the other Kingdoms of the Seven Deserts.  
  
“It grew heavy, like a weight on my brain. Like a weight on my soul, if I have one still.” A fleeting look of pain crossed over the Princess’s young face; Mulan let it do so. “Like burning anger, and hopelessness. Somehow… I lost hope.”  
  
The final words were spoken with a faint confusion, as if from a distance, and she realised that the unspoken ones to follow would have been, _‘But now I have found it again.’_ Giselle had worded her wish carefully, it seemed. The Princess pushed forward to let her feet touch the ground, then her eyes widened as she caught sight of what she had been upon.  
  
“I do not know what it is,” Mulan admitted. “Some magic, it seems. It came from beneath the sand when-”  
  
“The Genie!” Suddenly the Princess spun to face her, rising fully to her feet though she was still not too imposing a figure there. “When the other woman returned from the Cave, she had-”  
  
Before she could speak further, Mulan held a dagger at her throat, tip to skin. “I do not know about ‘genies’,” she said, tongue carefully tracing the foreign word, “but I have heard it speak and I will not give you that power after what you have done with what you already have.”  
  
The Princess’s hands, which she had raised, were lowered slowly back down, but she did not step back from the blade that came into brushing contact with her throat. “When I searched for it before, it is true that I did so out of greed, out of wrath,” she said. The words sounded carefully chosen. “But my world is different now than it was then. I do not understand how, but I promise you – if you will believe any promise that I make – that now as I wake the world seems different before my own eyes.”  
  
“My friend used one of the wishes from the Genie to heal you. She thinks that you can still sit upon the throne of Agrabah.”  
  
“You do not sound so certain.”  
  
Pursing her lips, Mulan shrugged. “I know that you have no kin who could inherit the throne in your place, and that a war over Agrabah would be a long and bloody one. But perhaps my trust is not won so easily as hers.”  
  
The Princess reached up, placed her fingers on each flat of the knife, and turned it away from her neck. It was worth no fight; Mulan allowed it to fall back to her side again. “My father was a good man,” she said, “and I loved him. But both good men and loved ones can be fools, and I was married to one that was neither. From my father’s death I knew that Jafar intended to destroy me, and it seemed that there was only one way in which I could fight to survive.”  
  
She held Mulan’s gaze, eyes arresting.  
  
“I can see that I am not the only one who has been forced to fight for their survival.”  
  
“Sooner or later we all are,” Mulan replied, feeling her own voice become a little gruff and defensive. The Dragon Sword hung heavy on her hip. “We do not all destroy good things in that fight.”  
  
“We do not all make the right decisions the first time.”  
  
In those words, there was a tender regret, and even Mulan could not think of that as a masquerade. She sheathed the dagger and buckled it into place, a firm promise of truce, and nodded to the thrones. “And now?”  
  
The Princess turned towards the thrones as well, the torchlight on the planes of her face and glinting – now warm, and without the harsh tones that were in hindsight apparent – in her eyes. A distant sadness passed over her features for a moment, and Mulan was struck almost from nowhere with thoughts of her own parents, and her childhood, then it was gone and determination, glowing rather than burning, settled there.  
  
“Now my Kingdom will have a Sultana,” she said, “and the Sultan’s blood upon the throne. I have many years for which to make up.”  
  
Mulan nodded, and allowed herself a faint smile, before turning to leave. Once the weight of evil was removed, things had a way of righting themselves, after all.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**  
  
She had found Giselle, her wounds now dressed, asleep with her head in Aurora’s lap. Aurora laughed softly when Mulan pointed out this was hardly the usual way around, but her fingers traced gently over Giselle’s temple, and she suggested that they not leave until the morning.  
  
Mulan agreed, but did not sleep, even when Aurora drifted into her usual light and fitful slumber. During the night she packed their things, and paced the rooms, and drank cool water whilst looking out over the sky beginning to lighten in preparation for the dawn. Their horses were not yet prepared, but by the time that the others awoke they were otherwise ready to move on. It had been a long time since any of them had even wanted to risk waiting to see the celebrations. There was too much danger that they would be asked to stay for a still longer time.  
  
On waking, Giselle seemed as bright as usual, although she moved with a stiffness that betrayed her injuries. With no guards outside their door, they had saddled their horses and were almost at the Palace gates when a shout came from behind them.  
  
“Stop! Please, wait!”  
  
It was not the threat that Mulan at least had half-expected, but nor was there the desperate thankfulness that had marked the voices of some of those whom they had helped. The three women stopped, turning in their saddles back to the Palace steps. The Sultana, robed in pale lilac and with her hair in loose waves around her face, ran down the steps with her bemused-looking guards following behind.  
  
“Please…” she was a little out of breath by the time that she reached them, but still held herself commandingly and paused to regain her breath before speaking further. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for everything that you have done. Not for me… but for Agrabah.”  
  
This time she spoke in the northern tongue, and Mulan replied in kind. “It is how we conduct ourselves… Your Majesty.”  
  
“I want you to know,” said the Sultana, dropping intent gently into her words, “that you are always welcome here. And should you find yourselves in need, Agrabah will answer.” She motioned to one of the guards, who stepped forwards and offered up to her a small wooden chest. Ignoring their faint protests, she opened up the chest to reveal three gold rosettes, fashioned almost like lace at their edges, and with shining jewel-bright enamels set into the centre of them. Closing the lid again, she offered the chest up to Mulan. “The crest of Agrabah. I hope that someday it will be of help to you.”  
  
Mulan accepted the chest; it was lighter than it looked, and at perhaps twelve inches in length would not be too large to strap to the saddlebags. However, she withdrew a pouch from her pocket, placed the three crests inside it, and then returned the empty chest back to the nearest guard.  
  
“We travel light,” she said, by way of explanation.  
  
The Sultana laughed, a sound which Mulan would have thought even recently would be impossible; it was bright and youthful, the early morning sun still spilling forth. “Very well. From that I understand also not to hold you longer. Fare well, travellers.”  
  
“Wait,” said Giselle, barely before the words had spilled in the air. From beneath her cloak she withdrew the golden lamp; the Sultana’s eyes went wide, but it was with amazement rather than the lustful gaze Mulan had momentarily feared. Giselle rubbed gently on its bulging side; there was a flash of light and a wave of blue smoke as the same figure all but erupted out into the air.  
  
It stretched its arms wide. “Oh baby, it’s good to be b-” The words died, the Genie looked sheepish, and he rolled down to an approximately human size as he floated next to Giselle. “Master. Your final wish?”  
  
Giselle exchanged a look with Aurora that, Mulan was quite sure, nobody else was supposed to even come close to being able to read.  
  
“Yes, Genie,” Giselle said. She turned back to him with a smile like she had not worn in many months on her face. “For my third wish… I wish you free.”  
  
There was a moment of pure, incredulous silence. Mulan stared, the Sultana stared, the guards stared, and the Genie himself stared at Giselle with a look of awe on his face. It was made more dramatic by the fact that his jaw apparently didn’t have to follow the rules of anatomy in how far it dropped.  
  
“You mean-”  
  
“Yes,” said Giselle, more insistently. “Genie… I wish you free.”  
  
As the Genie watched in dazed awe, light began to come from the golden bracelets around his wrists. He held out his hands as they began to glow, brighter and brighter, until Mulan had to shield her eyes and could only hear the air rushing around them and a sound like ice, and then she looked round to see the Genie looking at his bare, blue wrists, tears rolling down his face.  
  
In an instant, he had enveloped Giselle in an oversized embrace. “Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank-” he hugged Aurora and Mulan in turn – his skin was warm, there-but-not-there, and he smelt of magic – and was about to hug Khan when the horse gave him a singularly unimpressed look for his trouble. Instead, he patted Khan on the nose. “Well, you know what I mean.” Without a pause for breath, he whirled back, the smoke of his lower half coalescing into legs and allowing him to strike a pose. “Ten thousand years! So much I gotta catch up on, so much I gotta…”  
  
He trailed off, looking at Giselle with a smile that had a faint hint of pride around it. She was wearing much the same expression in return.  
  
“I know it’s not been a lot of time,” he said quietly, walking over to lay his hand on hers where it rested on the pommel of her saddle. “But I’m not going to forget you, kid. No way.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear it,” Giselle replied. “Say, Genie, one more thing…”  
  
“Ah ah ah!” He stepped back, waggling a finger at her warningly. “Three wishes! Wait, no, I’m not even a tied genie now! I don’t have to grant wishes at all!”  
  
He seemed to have surprised himself all over again with this revelation, and Giselle took the moment to laugh. “I know. Not a wish, Genie, just… a favour.”  
  
“A favour…” he drew out the word slowly, as if tasting it, trying it on for size, then seemed to grow a couple of feet as he declared: “I like it already!” Back down to normal again; it exhausted Mulan just to watch him. “What is it?”  
  
“Keep an eye on Agrabah,” said Giselle. For a moment she looked across to meet the Sultana’s gaze. “Help it get back on its feet once again.”  
  
Some of the mania faded from the Genie’s smile. He stepped upwards, lower body becoming a wisp of smoke once again, until he hovered level with her and could reach out to touch her cheek. “I can do that.”  
  
“Thank you,” she whispered. He nodded in return.  
  
With a deep breath, Giselle turned back towards the others, and lifted the reins in her hands – merely to make the point; a brush of her heels would be enough to set them into motion. “I believe we have somewhere else to be,” she said.  
  
In some ways, it was not true, not yet – they did not know where their feet were about to turn, where they might end up. All they knew for certain was the danger; Mulan was no fool of that, and she knew that as long as they travelled from land to land they invited danger down upon themselves with every step. When she saw the peace in the Sultana’s eyes, however, and the happiness in the Genie’s, she remembered why they did. Because in another way it was true: they had to be somewhere else, today, yesterday, always moving on before the world caught on and tried too hard to fight them in return.  
  
“I believe so,” Mulan replied, and saw Aurora simply smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this fic got huge. Thank you to anybody who is showing an interest in it.
> 
> This story was written as part of the cartoonbigbang, which unfortunately did not come together. It is also in response to [this prompt](http://disney-kink.livejournal.com/361.html?thread=2385513#t2385513) at the Disney Kink Meme.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Warning notes:**  
>  This story is dark throughout, including violent scenes. There are heavy references to/implications of non-con and (marital) captivity, from when the character in question was sixteen years old. Kidnapping, slavery, captivity and necrophilia are all very heavily implied. Past and present character death.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Content notes:**  
>  There is a lot going on in this fic, which does make it hard to tag. Mulan owes some of her influence to the Twisted Disney Princess art series. She can be read as bigendered, or as having two separate personas, but I leave that up to the reader. The concept of Aurora as a seer has been explored elsewhere, but I discovered this after beginning writing.
> 
> As well as the main canons, there are references to Snow White, Peter Pan and Fantasia. Edward's situation also owes something to the King Under the Mountain archetype. Shang speaks Mandarin; Mulan briefly speaks Arabic whilst in Agrabah. I apologise for any mistakes with these. The languages used in any of the magic rituals are conlangs of my own devising.


End file.
